Divine Intervention
by Mvctar Avrelivs
Summary: PART FIVE OF SEVEN: The Titans have always worked towards the greater good, vowing to help the innocent and protect the weak. But what if the greater good could only be served by betraying the innocent into the hands of evil? Finished. WARNING: FEMSLASH
1. Harum Scarum, Raise Alarum

**_Author's Note:_** I have received a review, as well as several emails asking me when Raven and Blackfire (or Starfire and Robin) are going to have sex. My answer: Even if Fanfiction's Terms Of Service allowed its stories to contain sex, I would not write any unless it fit into the overall storylines (no PWPs in other words) of my fics- meaning I will not write of any characters making love (not having sex; _there is a difference_) until the 'Something In Common' series is done.

Again, the usual disclaimers apply, nor can any of my original characters be used without my permission. I would also like to tell new readers that this story is the fifth in my 'Something In Common' series, and that reading Parts I – IV are necessary towards understanding parts of this fic's plot. Thank you.

**Chapter One: Harum Scarum, Raise Alarum**

**Three years ago…**

"Hagerty!"

"Yeah?"

"Light?"

Rummaging around in his uniform, the guard called Hagerty took out a small lighter. "Here you go," he said, shouldering his rifle.

"Thanks," the other guard said, his voice muffled by the cigarette in his mouth as he bent down.

"Don't mention it," Hagerty said. He sighed. "Ain't this is a boring night," he grumbled.

"Tell me about it," his friend said, taking a long drag of his cigarette. "I mean, you'd think that the government's most top-secret, high-tech research facility'd have at least a TV."

He shifted his rifle to a more comfortable position. "I mean- this is a top secret facility, right?"

"Yep," Hagerty nodded absentmindedly, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

"You expect something interesting to be happening, right?"

"Yep," Hagerty said, still not listening.

"…That's a helluva nice tattoo your wife's got her butt."

"Yep."

"You're not listening to me, are you, Hagerty?"

"Nope."

The other guard sighed.

"Hey sorry, Ollie," Hagerty said, "I'd like to listen to you, but- look, say what you like about the government's Dark Ops sections; they sure ration out some damn fine cigarettes. Wonder what they put in them?"

"Prob'ly some kinda alien tech they got in 51," Ollie replied, leaning against the wall.

"Oh come on. You saying the government stole ET's Marlboros?"

"Sure they did! They got all this other stuff from them aliens," he lifted his laser rifle, one of only a few hundred in existence. "Who knows what else kinda hellbrew they got."

"Heh, I can just see it now: E.T phone home, says 'Hey Ma, them humans stole my Menthols!' "

Ollie laughed. "Listen Hag, if I was gonna go across deep space to God knows where, the last thing I wanna smoke's a pack of- you hear that?" he said, picking up his rifle quickly.

"I heard it, I heard it," Hagerty replied, lifting his rifle as well. As per their training, Ollie pointed his rifle down the hallway they were patrolling, Hagerty pointed his to the ceiling ventilation shafts. "Sorta squelchy noise, right? Where'd it come from?"

"Don't know- damn halls echo every damn place," Ollie said in a loud whisper. "Now shut up, I'm trying to list- there it is again! Down the hall! The other corridor!"

As a man, the two guards pointed their rifles down the hall, where the corridor turned into another passageway, and as they did, that 'squelchy noise' returned, and this time it was accompanied by a guttural growl.

From where they stood, they saw sparks fly in the other passage, just before the lights blew out. Just before that happened, they caught sight of something big in the shadows.

"Er, Ollie?" Hagerty said, his voice trembling.

"Y-yeah, Hag?"

"What else did they get from Area 51?"

"I was just joking, man!"

"I ain't," Hagerty said. "Come on, Ollie, you seen this kinda movie-"

"Shut up, Hag, shut up," Ollie said, reaching for his radio with trembling hands.

"I'm serious, Ollie! The guards're always the first to-"

"I said shut up, Hag!" a terrified Ollie yelled. "S-Squad 52, come in 52!" he shouted into his radio. "This is 91, requesting backup! I repeat, come in 52! 52 please respond!"

Suddenly, the lights at the end of their hallway began shorting out one by one, slowly.

As the two guards backed away, Ollie quickly changed the frequency. Something was very, very wrong. "Squad 39, come in Squad 39! Squad 65! 78! Jeebus Krispies is there anyone out there!" he said desperately, reverting to childhood blasphemy in his terror. "Somebody please respond!"

A sudden screech cut through the air, and Hagerty's rifle clattered on the ground as another light shorted out. "Pick it up, man! Pick it up!" Ollie yelled.

"Like hell I will!" Hagerty said, turning around and running.

Ollie was about to follow him, when his brain kicked in. _Wait a minute,_ he thought dumbly, looking down into his arms. _I got a gun. I should use it. What a wonderful idea_.

He pressed a button on the stock of his gun, and heard a reassuring hum as the battery charged up. "Come and get it! Heeere's OLLIE!"

_What a wonderful idea I had._

And with that shout he blasted away into the darkness. "Who's your daddy? Who's your mommy? Who's your uncle? Say uncle! Say uncle! And after you're done sayin' uncle, you say hello to my leetle friend MR. BOOMSTICK!" he yelled firing and firing away-

-until the moment when he pulled the trigger and nothing happened. As the rush died down, he became aware of a high pitched beeping from his rifle, indicating that his rifle battery had run out.

The pat of a footstep made him look up into the darkness (which, he noted with mounting horror, had not been illuminated by his laser beams, supposedly superheated bolts of light). Out from it, a pale, little girl emerged, her long, messy hair almost covering the ragged (once) white dress that covered her to the knees.

She held out a hand, as if moving to grab Ollie, and that was when the guard's bravery broke. He had been trained to fight aliens, he had been trained to fight other people, had even been trained to fight supervillains, but he had never been trained to fight a "Ghost! Ghost! The freakin' place's freakin' haunted!"

And with those yells, he ran helter-skelter in the direction Hagerty had taken.

The girl put her hand down. A voice next to her said, "You do know I could have taken those two down easy, right?"

"You would have hurt them," the little girl said softly. "Just like you hurt the other guards."

"Geez, you don't have to be so dramatic," the other speaker snorted as the darkness receded, revealing the speaker to be a tall boy. Massive incisions all over his body told stories of horrific surgery. "I just knocked 'em unconscious, that's all."

"You still hurt them," the girl insisted.

"So? It's still better than watching you almost kill yourself using up all your bioelectric energy for all that Hollywood special effects!" the boy said.

The girl was silent for a while. "When we finally get out of here, we're going to steal some food and money- well, some more money-"

"Yeah, that was the plan," the boy said, grinning at the thought of all the unconscious guards' cash in his pockets.

"-and then we're gonna split up."

"Okay, sure, I get you. Where do you wanna meet up?"

"We won't."

It took a few moments for her words to sink in, but when they did… "What do you mean?" he asked quietly.

"I saw how you were with those guards," the girl said.

"Hey, all I did was knock them out-"

"You hurt them," she said. "You broke their arms, their legs-"

"I was trying to protect us!"

"Were you?" the girl said, finally looking at the boy, her eyes burning with anger. "I saw you when you were 'protecting us'," she said, stepping forward while the boy staggered back. "You liked it. You weren't trying to protect us- all you wanted to do was hurt them!"

"Hey, I don't see you complaining about the money I stole! Stole for us!"

"I didn't know you were going to do that to get it!"

"Look, they deserved it! If they had the chance, they'd do the same thing to us!"

"And is that who you want to be? Like them?"

The boy opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

"I want to escape this place," she said, her voice returning to a whisper.

"Well, isn't that what we're doing?" the boy asked, trying to inject some joviality into his voice.

"I know it's what I'm doing," the girl said, looking away, before turning back to the boy. "I just wish you were too," she said, before she turned and began walking away.

The boy wanted to follow her, but his legs would not move. "Jessie?" the boy called out hoarsely, the tears in his voice evident in his voice.

The girl stopped in her tracks.

"I lied when I said I was trying to protect us."

The girl did not turn around.

"I was trying to protect you. That's all I want to do."

The girl still didn't speak.

"I promised I'd protect you no matter what, Jessie," he said. "That's all I was trying to do," he repeated in a whisper.

The girl was silent for a moment. "Thank you," she said finally, "but I'm not sure if it would be worth it."

With that, she continued walking. The boy followed, his manner that of a whipped dog. He knew that when Jessie made up her mind, there was no way he could change it.

"I'm sorry, Jessie," he whispered, in a voice so quiet he wondered if he was speaking at all. "I'm sorry."


	2. Grin Prospects

**Chapter Two: Grin Prospects**

For the umpteenth time in what seemed as many minutes, Raven wondered what she was doing there. It wasn't as if she hated being there, it was just that she felt there were better places to spend her time. She could have been at the Tower, meditating, or out at the park with the others, reading, or back at the Jump City Museum helping Director Jones with his artifacts.

But the boys had decided to teach Starfire baseball, and Indy (as Director Jones insisted Raven call him) had an appointment with some young archeologist, while Blackfire insisted that Raven come along with her to the mall.

That was how she ended up here, at the newly opened Fischer's Fissure, the mall's trendiest clothing boutique. Needless to say, it wasn't her sort of place.

Raven sighed as she looked at the changing room in front of her, wondering about what outlandish costume Blackfire would choose. The fact that Blackfire had asked Raven not to look as she came back with a huge selection of clothing, as well as the fact that Fischer's Fissure (established by an ex-funeral home worker) had a special section designated as 'Formal Funeral', complete with veils, wide-brimmed black hats, flowing gowns- in short, all the pseudo-Gothic wear that annoyed Raven no end, gave Raven a pretty good idea of what Blackfire was going to come out with.

Raven's bored face soon gave way to a small smile of resignation, as she mused on the thought that maybe that was why Blackfire had brought them there- maybe she thought she had found a fashion store Raven would actually like.

"Nice try," Raven whispered, as she leaned back against the wall.

"You say something, Raven?" Blackfire asked from behind the door, her voice slightly muffled.

"No," Raven replied. "Are you done yet?"

"Almost," Blackfire replied, a tone of mischievousness in her voice. "Just trying to add some finishing touches. No peeking!"

Raven rolled her eyes and looked away. Barely a year ago, that tone in Blackfire's voice would have sent alarm bells ringing in the minds of all the Titans. These days, it (usually) seemed like the only one who'd end up with pie on her face'd be Raven.

That being said, it was a small price to pay for being with a person who made her say-

"Wow." It was all Raven could manage when she saw Blackfire step out. She wasn't the Gothic Vampire Queen™ Raven had been expecting, nor did she emerge a Consumptive Tudor Maiden®. Instead, she simply emerged in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black cotton shirt.

"I knew you'd like it," Blackfire said, walking towards Raven.

"It isn't really what I expected you to pick, though," Raven said, still bemused.

Laughing, Blackfire replied, "Raven, you don't become a good thief by drawing attention to yourself- you become a good thief by drawing attention to others." Placing her arms around Raven and drawing the Azerath close, Blackfire whispered, "And at the moment, you're the one in the leotard and deep blue cloak."

"I'm your distraction?" Raven asked drily.

"Well, you're certainly distracting me," Blackfire whispered huskily, drawing the two of them closer-

"WOO-WOO! Yeah ladies! Go for it!" someone cried out.

Blackfire and Raven turned in the direction of the speaker; a tall, lanky boy, currently pounding his fist in the air, while his friend nearby laughed. "What're you waiting for?" he shouted, ignoring the dirty looks some of the patrons were giving him. "Changing room's right there! Don't worry, I won't peek- much!"

The two girls glared at them for a moment. "Wait here," Blackfire said, before walking over to the boys. "Do you know who I am?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, 'Blackfire' and 'Raven'," the boy said, hooking his fingers. "I know who you two are! Hey, you missed a spot!" he said pointing to her eyebrows, laughing. "Hey, I think the geek convention's next door!" he yelled, before breaking into laughter again.

Blackfire actually looked disgusted. " 'Geek convention'? That's the best insult you can come up with? Oh please!"

"Oh, oh, oh, lemme guess- you're gonna show me how it's done," the joker said-

-when suddenly two tendrils of dark energy came up from beneath him, holding his arms in place. "No," Raven said. "I am."

"Oh crap," the comedian's friend said in a small voice as the blood drained from both his and his friend's faces, "you're the real Raven, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Not some chick in a costume?" the joker asked.

"Well, she's not just 'some chick', I can tell you that," Blackfire quipped."And do you know what else that means?" she added sweetly.

"Th-th-th-that you're the real Blackfire?" the boy squeaked.

Blackfire nodded, her wide grin one of obscene cheerfulness.

The prankster visibly gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "Hey, c'mon, I was just foolin' around, I didn't mean anything," he said. "I don't want- Oh nooo…" he whimpered, as a shadow fell over them.

Blackfire looked up, and was shocked to see Raven towering over everyone in the store, all four red eye slits blazing, looking more terrible now than she did six months ago in R'l'yeh. "Raven!" Blackfire shouted in distress- until Raven glared at her, and to Blackfire's surprise, the two left eyes went dark for a moment before flaring up again. The Tameranean smiled, and backed down.

Raven then proceeded to loom over the two boys, now shaking uncontrollably. "Please oh please oh please I don't wanna die NOOOOOOO **_MOOOMMMEEE_**!" he shouted as a dark hand shot out from beneath Raven's cloak at him-

-holding a wad of bills. "Fifty dollars," Raven growled.

"H-huh?"

"To replace your pants." And as Raven returned to her normal size, and the wave of dark energy withdrew into her, it was plain for all in the store to see that both boys now had very, very wet patches in the middle of their pants, running down to their legs. Looking at each other, then at Raven, the two boys broke and ran, the fifty dollars drifting down to the floor untouched.

(scene change)

Later, as Blackfire and Raven sat at a nearby restaurant, the laughter and applause of the boutique's patrons and employees still ringing in their ears, Raven shifted Blackfire's huge bags full of willingly discounted clothing at her feet further under their windowside table, and stretched out her legs.

She looked out the window, but after a second or two, turned back to Blackfire. In her opinion (although not one she would ever express in public), even the view from their table, a pristine scene of Jump City Park and the ocean, could not compare with the view across her table.

"Nice show you put on there, Raven," Blackfire said with sincere appreciation, putting down her coffee ("Two heaped tablespoons of the blackest coffee you have, add hot water. Got it?"). "You didn't have to do that, though," Blackfire grinned, her eyes starting to glow.

"I know- why do you think I got involved?" Raven deadpanned, as a waitress placed a small plate of shrimp linguini in front of her.

"Oh Raven! You were worried about me?" Blackfire asked in tones wide-eyed innocence.

This time, it was Raven's turn to smile. "Do you know how much you sound like Starfire when you do that?"

"Gah, don't remind me," Blackfire grumbled, before breaking into a smile. "So, tell the truth- how good do I look?"

Raven raised an eyebrow.

"Gee, thank you, Raven," Blackfire said with good-natured sarcasm.

"To tell the truth, I prefer you in your battle armor," Raven said.

"No kidding," Blackfire replied, as she briefly pulled back a sleeve.

"Doesn't that get hot?" Raven asked, seeing the flash of metal.

"Oh Raven, you know I'm always hot," Blackfire replied. "Sorry, I couldn't resist," she added, seeing the look Raven gave her.

More seriously, she added, "But actually, no, it's not that hot. And besides, this way, nobody will know I've got body armor on until it's too late."

Raven found herself smiling at that remark. "Until it's too late?"

Blackfire gave Raven a wicked smile. "Until it's _way_ too late," she repeated.

Raven found herself smiling as well. For all the time she had spent on Earth, Blackfire was still in quite a few respects the same person who had crash-landed on Earth nearly a year ago.

"Say, Raven?" Blackfire asked. "Why didn't you get yourself anything?"

"I like the way I look," Raven said, taking a bite of pasta.

"Don't get me wrong, Raven, so do I," Blackfire whispered slyly. "I just think it's about time you tried something new, something- oh I don't know, something exciting."

"Exciting for me? Or for you?" Raven asked, a hint of a smile playing across her face.

"Well," Blackfire said, leaning forward, "who says it can't be a win-win situation…?"

(scene change)

"Come on Dannie," the trucker drawled, "this way we both win!"

"Oh really?" the waitress he called Dannie replied, as she picked up his dirty dishes. "How do I win, exactly?"

"Well, I don't hafta pay, and you get my undyin' friendship," he replied, smiling.

The waitress laughed. "Sorry, Mike- Mama says pay, you gotta pay. It's only five bucks."

"I know, I know," Mike said, getting up towards the diner's cashier. "Just lookin' for an excuse to see you smile, is all."

Dannie smiled back at him, and went to the kitchen. She knew he had a little crush on her, and he knew she knew. To tell the truth, it was kind of flattering. Sure, he was old- not old enough to be her dad or anything like that, eww- but old nonetheless, yet he was also kind-hearted, harmless, and in his own, rough Southern way, a perfect gentleman.

"If only I were just ten years older, Mama," Dannie said as she ran into the diner's owner washing dishes in the kitchen. Well, supervising, anyway.

"Child, if you was ten years older you'd have done gone and found yourself a man already," Mama said. Mama, real name Margaret Matthews, was a larger-than-life (both physically and in spirit) black woman, and she made damn sure everyone within a ten-mile radius knew it. "And I hope to God when you do get ten years older, you find yourself a better man than that trucker out there."

"Oh Mama, there's nothing wrong with him," Dannie said, putting the dishes in the sink before turning around.

"Oh no, Dannie, you ain't goin' nowhere!"

Mama turned to the girl washing the dishes. "Joanne, you get your butt out there and start serving the customers. Dannie here'll take over." She fixed Dannie with a penetrating gaze. "I gots some things I wanna talk to her about."

"Sure thing, Mama," Joanne said. "Guess that's the end of my 'break'," she said as she walked out.

"Damn if that girl didn't have a smart mouth on her," Mama said, as Dannie took over dishwashing duties.

"Now, now, Mama," the cook said, "she's a good worker."

"I know she's a good worker, Tom! That's why she still workin' here! Did I ask for your opinion? I don't think I asked for your opinion."

"You see how she talks to me, Dannie?" the cook laughed. "If you get yourself a husband, find someone like me- a husband who's only seen, not heard."

"Well, I seem to be doin' a whole lot of hearin' from you! Now hush up, I gotta talk to this little girl here 'bout her choice of men."

"Like you're one to talk," Tom said, placing a plate of sausages and eggs on the counter. "Order up!"

"Didn't I just tell you to hush? So you're white, so what? Don't mean I can't love you! Now shut your mouth and let me talk to the girl."

Outside, Joanne took the plate of sausages and eggs to man sitting alone at the far end of the diner. "You order this, sir?"

"Yeah, thanks," the man said gratefully. He was well-dressed, simple black-and-white business suit ensemble. In front of him was an open briefcase with various files and documents.

"Anything else, mister?"

"No, no thanks, I've got everything I need," he said, taking out one of the documents on the briefcase. The look he gave her was a polite one, albeit a bit distracted. Joanne could see that he obviously had a lot of work to do.

"Okay then, mister, have a nice day," she said, walking off. "If you need anything else, just holler."

"Okay, I'll do that," the man nodded distractedly, his attention on the document in his hands.

But as she did, the man's face immediately hardened as he watched her walk away. When he was confident she was out of earshot, he took out his cell phone. "She's here."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly sure. She hasn't changed much in three years, to tell the truth. I recognized her at once."

"But she didn't recognize you?"

"No sir, she didn't."

"Good work- wait."

"Sir? Is anything wrong?"

"…No, no, nothing's wrong," the voice at the other end said. "In fact, things are very, very right indeed."

"If you say so, sir. What do I do here?"

"Keep up your surveillance, but don't make yourself too obvious. I want to know where she goes, what she does, where she lives. If she so much as sneezes, I want the tissue she wipes her nose with, understand?"

"Yes sir."

"And Herman?"

"Yes sir?"

"Get your team ready. If things go to plan, you may be moving out soon."

The man's smiled widened and grew cruel. "Yes sir."


	3. TMAXF

Dear readers, if I might as a favour of you? Before you begin reading this, I request that you read the Author's Note in my profile. Thank you.

And my apologies for taking so long- in my lie of work, it never rains or pours, but floods.

**Chapter Three: The Marvelous Amazing Xinothium Factory**

The voice echoed loudly through the inky darkness, yet at first, the listener could make nothing of it.

The voice was familiar, yet the words it spoke went unheard, lost in the black oblivion that the listener was drifting aimlessly around in, silent save for the unknown voice.

And the pain.

The pain was not a companion of the darkness. It was not a stranger to the emptiness, like the voice was; the pain _was_ the darkness- an inescapable reality of the universe that the listener found himself in.

The listener... what was his name? Who was he? What was he? He could not remember, he tried to remember-

_Excitement_

_Exultation_

_Happiness_

_Wait_

_It_

_It was coming toward him_

_Too fast_

_He could not stop It_

_Pain_

_And the Pain_

_His Pain _

_Was all his fault_

And through the memories of Pain, through the Agonies visited upon the listener, the voice returned, and this time, the listener heard it, he heard the words-

"Hey Cyborg, you okay man?" Beast Boy asked worriedly.

With an audible groan, Cyborg opened his eye, half-shut to keep out the sun's glare; however, he could still make out the faces of his friends gathered around him, looks of concern passing between them.

"Perhaps I threw the ball too hard, yes?" Starfire asked, her entire body language for the moment compressed into the word 'oops'.

"Man, you think?" Cyborg said, rubbing his head as his memories came flooding back. "Hey, don't sweat it Starfire," he added, seeing the look of increased distress that Starfire had. "It wasn't really your fault, actually."

"You got that right," Beast Boy teased. "What was it you said again? Oh yeah- 'Throw it as hard as you can, Starfire!'"

"She did ask you if you were sure that was what you wanted," Robin added.

"All right, all right, you don't have to rub it in," Cyborg replied ruefully. As he stood back up, he picked up his bat. "Okay, let's try this again."

"Try… again?" Robin asked incredulously, his look of disbelief shared by Starfire and Beast Boy. "You sure, Cyborg?"

"Robin, I got knocked out, not struck out," Cyborg said. Even now, he could feel his cybernetic enhancements dulling the pain and repairing him. " 'Sides, this time I know what to expect."

Suddenly, their communicators started beeping. As Cyborg looked at his, he frowned. "Okay, I didn't expect this."

(scene change)

With the exception of the Titans and a few affluent citizens in various penthouses, Jump City was not a place where people lived. The sprawling metropolis was a place of work, the commercial and industrial centre of a sixth of America. Not even a giant lizard's rampage could change that. It could not even change the skyrocketing price of workable land.

The global mega-companies that were located here were faced with a dilemma. The increasing importance of Jump City in global business meant that they needed more staff and facilities on location, but the price of real estate meant that they had to get creative.

And they did- expanding underground. Some companies had even built underground complexes as deep as the buildings above them were tall, and even though the initial cost was astronomical, the profit soon made up for it. And it was the interest of sharing that profit that sent one intrepid young man into one of these complexes.

The first time he had been in here, the level of security had surprised him. The human element alone was enough to put off a lesser criminal, with personnel ranging from Mossad security 'consultants', to regular guards with better weapons than the 101st Airborne, not to mention the many hidden security cameras and motion sensors, droids, biometrics; this place made Fort Knox look like a sandcastle.

It had no choice- what was stored in this facility was far more valuable than mere gold. So valuable, in fact, and in such quantities, that if anything, the security here was less efficient than would be expected. There were holes in it; small ones, but given enough skill and expertise, a good thief would be more than able to exploit them, for both his entry and his getaway.

And when it came to thievery, there were none better than Red X, and he knew it.

Now he was deep inside the building- and just as he expected, nothing stood in his way anymore. No guards, no hidden devices- they were just at the outside levels. After all, since it was of course impossible for anyone to get this deep into the complex, it would just have been a waste of money to put security measures in here, right?

Thus, it was just plain sailing from here on in.

_And yet, elsewhere:_

"_We have him on our scanners. Adrenalin levels fluctuating slightly, but still within acceptable parameters. I don't think he suspects that we're watching him at all, Ra."_

"_He has not detected these cameras?"_

"_Doesn't look like it. Personally, I can't see how he could. That mask scanner of his is good, but there's no way he could configure it to detect-"_

"_Wait! What's he going in there for? The vault's in the opposite direction."_

"_If he wants to waste time, more power to him, I guess. You think I should call security now?"_

"_Negative, Jupiter- Alpha says hold back."_

"_Hold back? Why?"  
_

"_Omega's orders. He says our own security can't be reliable, and Alpha agrees- "Too good to be trusted," I think were her exact words."_

"_So what're we supposed to do? Just sit here and watch?"_

"_You say that as if we had a choice."_

"_But what if he goes too far? What if he sees what he shouldn't?"_

"_What if he finds us, is that what you're asking? Don't worry, Alpha said she had other plans for this one…"_

Red X peered into the computer room, and despite his knowing that there can't possibly have been anyone in the room, crept in anyway- no harm in being too careful.

Of course, if he really wanted to be careful, he'd have gone to the vault, stolen a few canisters of Xinothium, and ran off as quick and as stealthily as he went in.

But if his stolen schematics were correct, then this was no ordinary computer room; this was the nerve centre of the entire company. From corporate secrets to emails sent from company computers- it was all in here.

But none of that interested him. The only thing that he wanted to steal from this company was its Xinothium, nothing more. It was just… he had to know.

He walked to the keyboard, his fingers dancing lightly across the keys as they entered various ill gotten codes and passwords, along with more pedestrian search terms.

The screen flickered as it searched its massive database, but even as the minutes passed and the risk of his detection grew higher, Red X waited patiently. He knew the information was here, he just had to wait a little longer. If he was forced to, he'd steal just a little Xinothium, not enough to sell, just enough to- There!

A file emerged on the screen. It looked like any other personnel file that the company's employees would have, picture, employment date, biodata, the works, but Red X was the last person this file could fool. He reached a hand outwards to the figure on the screen… and drew back as he saw a small note electronically attached to the file and he entered a few more codes and passwords.

He almost fainted dead away when he saw what was inside that attachment. Notes, pictures- and a 'revised employment date', set less than a week from now.

Red X turned to run out of the room. It looked like The Great Xinothium Robbery would just have to wait. For now, he couldn't care less about wasting time to find buyers for the stuff; today he'd just get the bare minimum of Xinothium he needed for himself, and then-

He stopped in his tracks as he entered the massive underground chamber containing the Xinothium vault. The room was huge, with masses of interconnecting pipes along the walls, the ceiling- even the floor itself was nothing more than another tangled web of pipes. Connecting as well as being connected to those pipes were various structures scattered across the layout of the room, ranging in size from small computer consoles to towering monoliths could be seen even in the darkness of the room, lighted only by a few scattered lights that ringed the vault itself, set into the floor.

But the sheer scale of the room was not what had halted Red X's advance.

"Long time no see," Robin said, the other Titans behind him.

"The Teen Titans," Red X said. Although his voice rang of confident bravado, the young thief was glad his mask hid his face, now itself a mask of absolute terror. "You're here early."

"Seems like we're here just in time," Robin replied. "Titans, go!"

Red X's eyes narrowed, his mouth curling into a snarl as he prepared himself to receive the Titans' incoming charge, but it was becoming hard for him to concentrate as he tried to clear his mind of thoughts of the Xinothium just barely out of his reach- and what would happen if he didn't get it.

A loud screech brought him out of his reverie, and it was only his instinctive reactions that brought him out of the path of a diving Beast Boy in the form of a diving peregrine falcon-

-right into a pool of purple light. "Some thief you are, amateur!" Blackfire shouted exultantly as she readied a starbolt in her fist-

"Blackfire, no!" Robin and Cyborg shouted in unison.

"What?" Blackfire responded incredulously, turning around to face her friends, a split-second before a large, sticky red X hit her, entangling her as she fell to the ground.

"Nice try- _amateur_," Red X gloated, giving Blackfire an insolent smile and salute, before disappearing into the shadows.

"Robin!" Blackfire yelled angrily, as she tried to free herself from the adhesive fibres.

"Sorry about that, Blackfire," Robin said, as he and Cyborg came over to assist. "But this is a Xinothium vault, after all."

"So?" Blackfire spat back.

"Same reason I can't use my ion cannon, and your sister ain't using her starbolts, Blackfire- the refined Xinothium in the vault's potentially explosive," Cyborg replied. "If we let you fire that bolt, you'dve been blown sky high- heck, we could've all ended up as wallpaper."

He smiled. "Then Raven'd be really mad at us."

(scene change)

Red X paused in the shadows behind a large pipe, trying to catch his breath while keeping the noise of his breathing down. He knew it was only a matter of time before at least one the Titans found him, and the last thing he wanted was to face them weakened and breathless. Besides- it just wouldn't look cool.

But as he slowly got his wind back, he wondered if he should be fighting the Titans at all. He could ask them for help- they would help him, wouldn't they? And then together, they'd be able to… they could him bring down…

Red X shook his head. No. They wouldn't help him- he was a known criminal, a wanted man. Why should they trust him? And even if by some twist of fate they did trust him, would they help him? More to the point, would they help him they way he wanted them to?

No- they'd probably try to do things the right way, the nice way, the_ legal _way- and Red X knew that s- that he didn't have that sort of time to spare.

His eyes narrowed in determination as he came to the realization that this was his fight; he had no other choice, and even if he did, he would not have it any other way.

"Have what any other way?" a gravelly feminine voice deadpanned from behind him.

Red X spun around to find himself face to face with Raven. "You know, it's not polite to read other people's thoughts," he said, trying to keep the spike of icy terror out of his voice.

"No, it's useless to hide in the shadows if you're talking to yourself," Raven countered. "Besides, I like the shadows."

"Let me change that," Red X said, as he sprayed a web of red fibres at Raven from dispensers in his palms, red fibres that Raven managed to deflect thanks to a quickly erected shield.

"Nice try," she said- to nothing. Her eyes opening wide in surprise, she turned, only to see the merest flash of cape disappear behind yet another silicon monolith. This time, it was her turn to narrow her eyes in determination as she merged into the shadows to continue her pursuit.

And that was exactly what Red X was hoping she'd do: continue her pursuit far, far away from there, as if she was chasing Red X, master thief at the height of his powers, instead of the weakened shell that had staggered behind the monolith, his mask's internal readouts basically indicating Red X's health was at dangerous levels.

And things were just going from bad to worse. Red X soon found out just how bad a shape he was in when, having turned a corner, he ran smack dab into "Starfire?"

For one moment, the shocked looks on their faces was comical- then the moment passed and Starfire sped to the attack, catching Red X in a grappling hold.

At least, that was what she had intended to do. As her arms closed around empty air, her quarry having ducked out of the way in the nick of time, Starfire prepared herself to receive whatever Xinothium-powered counterattack Red X had in store for her.

But the counterattack never came.

"Sorry, Starfire," he whispered. "I have more important things than you to think about…"

With that, he ran in the direction he knew the vault doors to be, a pell-mell, devil-may-care charge that he hoped was the last thing that the Titans had been expecting from someone like him.

And judging by the Titans' reactions, he had succeeded. "There he is!" Robin shouted with equal amounts of shock, embarrassment and determined anger in his voice. "Titans-"

But it was too late. Before Robin could finish the Titans' battlecry, the sound of an explosion and the flash of a massive ball of fire filled their worlds.

"God-_dammit_, Red X!" Cyborg shouted as he steadied himself, the unfamiliar profanity echoing in the room louder than the crackling of the remaining flames. "What're you, _crazy_?"

"We all have things we're willing to gamble our lives for, Cyborg!" Red X shouted back enigmatically as he ran into the smoke. Like Cyborg's curse, Red X's voice was also different from what the Titans had expected; a tired, even desperate note had replaced his confident, even cocky tones in his voice.

"You're about to lose that bet!" Blackfire shouted, but as she sped forward to pursue the thief, she found herself restrained by Cyborg yet again. "What the frell is it now?" she demanded.

"Like he said, we're about to be blown sky-high if we don't do something quick," Robin growled. His temper was not made any better by the pain in the back of his head, thanks to the explosion's shockwave throwing him back against a console.

"So you would let the Red X retreat?" Starfire asked.

"We have no choice," Cyborg said. "My scans show this place'll blow unless we all do something- all of us," he continued, looking meaningfully at Blackfire.

But she wasn't paying attention- her gaze was fixed in the smoke and flames where Red X had disappeared. Amateur, he had called her, and at that moment, an amethyst haze of anger had descended. Now she was forced to let him retreat, that insult still ringing in her ears-

Suddenly, she felt Raven's hand clasping hers. Blackfire spun around angrily, ready to face whatever lecture she was expecting Raven to give her, but all the Azerath said was, "We'll get him, Blackfire- I promise."

"Hey Raven, Blackfire! Either skip the mushy stuff, or end up mushy stuff!" Cyborg shouted as he ran off to a console. Behind him, Robin was at his own console and shouting instructions to a nearby Starfire, who had opened up a cubelike structure and was busy flipping the switches and dials within.

Raven nodded at Cyborg's statement, and disappeared back into the shadows. Blackfire gave one last glance to where Red X had disappeared, before she too, submitted to the instructions Cyborg was barking at her.

(scene change)

"And as I recall, the instructions I gave were for you to apprehend the criminal," Director Simone Page said, her voice as arrogant and severe as her appearance. Although she was obviously a young woman in her mid-20s, the way she wore her all-white business attire, the way she stood and spoke, her steely-grey eyes behind a pair of small glasses, even the way she had tied her blonde hair into a tight bun made her seem as if she was far older, and by extension, wiser (at least, that was what she obviously expected).

It was a guise that Robin was determined not to be intimidated by, as he and the other Titans stood toe to toe with the Director within a soundproof boardroom; the last thing Director Page wanted was any word of the incident leaking out.

"Your _request_," Robin replied, his voice stiff yet polite, "was for us to keep your Xinothium reserves from being stolen and if possible, apprehend the criminal who had targeted it," he continued, repeating Page's request verbatim. Normally he'd have been a lot more civil, but there was just something about this woman that made you want to hate her guts.

"You are the Teen Titans, aren't you? The finest heroes Jump City has to offer?" Page asked. "Wouldn't a request from an organization that has contributed to the city coffers as much as the Aquinas Corporation be as good as an order? And furthermore, you did not even prevent him from stealing Xinothium! A few vials are missing!"

"You cannot know that-" Robin began, before the Director cut him off again.

"These are not any ordinary pair of glasses," she said, taking them off and showing them to Robin; small technical readouts could be seen from her side of the lens. "They have certain electronic enhancements that are at this moment, transmitting data from the vaults to me- data that indicates that some of the Xinothium you were supposed to protect has been stolen! Explain yourselves!"

Even Starfire's legendary saintly patience (at least, when it came to matters not involving Kitten) had been eroded. "Miss Simone Page-"

"_Director_ Page," Page interrupted coldly.

"…Director Page," Starfire said, having taken a deep breath. "I simply wish you to understand, we-"

"And I simply wish you to understand that not only did you fail to protect the Xinothium, but you also let this thief escape! Soon he will undoubtedly return, causing more trouble to our organization-"

"Hey lady- just in case you didn't know, we saved your precious 'organization'!" Cyborg countered crossly.

Surprisingly enough (at least, to those who didn't know the full story), one Titan not getting involved at all was Blackfire, who was leaning back on a chair at the other end of the room, her arms crossed and her face in a dark scowl.

"He called me an amateur," she hissed as Raven took the seat next to hers. Several feet away, the sounds of the argument between the other Titans and Director Page subtly intensified. "Like stealing from this place makes him some kind of an expert! I've stolen imperial treasures, corporate secrets from galactic merchant confederations, but I make one little mistake, and he calls me an amateur!"

She sat there, scowling for a few moments, before Raven spoke. "You miss it, don't you?"

"What?"

"You miss being a thief, don't you?" Raven asked again, in her plain, simple manner.

Blackfire stared at Raven in astonishment for a second, then gave a wry, rueful smile. "You know, Raven, I do need to have some secrets from you."

Raven's expression didn't change, and Blackfire sighed, conceding defeat. "Yeah, I suppose you could say that I miss being a thief," she said quietly. "You could even say that I was jealous of Red X back there. To tell the truth, Raven, I didn't become a thief because I wanted money. Even after my father cast me out, I was still a member of Tamaranean royalty- the fact that I fell for a servant girl was bad enough, but disowning me would have been too much. As long as I was reasonable, I'm sure I would have been given enough money for a nice life."

She sighed again, this time leaning forward onto the table. "But I became a thief instead. At first, it was to punish my father, but after that first time…"

She smiled. "You can't believe the rush you get when you sneak into a highly guarded facility on your own, and the target's right in front of you," she said wistfully, the lingo of her bygone years coming back to her easily. "Or the excitement you feel as you wait for the law to realize it was you, or the satisfaction of walking into the seediest bar on a planet, and you know, you just _know_, that everyone in there's just burning with envy because all the news broadcasts are about you and the latest thing you did, and all they could hope to get was a sentence or two at the end of the show."

She looked up to Raven now, her expression wistful. "You even got a rush when the law caught up to you, and you made your daring escape."

As Raven looked back at Blackfire, the Tamaranean noticed something in the Azerath's eyes. Was it bewilderment? No, no it wasn't- it was fear. Why? "Blackfire?" she asked, as if afraid of what the answer would be.

"Yes?"

"If- if you miss your old life so much, why are you staying here?" Raven asked, her voice quiet.

Ah, so that was it. "Well," Blackfire began, "I have my reasons." She gave Raven a wry smile. "But as for the main reason- well, I'm looking at her right now," she said, and took a certain degree of pleasure at the sound of Raven's breath catching in her throat, and the blush on the Azerath's cheeks.

As if sensing those happy feelings, and judging them as out of place in her presence, Director Page turned to Raven and Blackfire. "And you two, don't get too comfortable," she snarled. "I'm receiving certain footage that shows how badly one of you screwed up, and the other nearly destroyed the facility."

"How would you expect my sister to know that the vault of Xinothium would explode?" Starfire said hotly, before Blackfire could respond. "Most of us know not of this Xinothium, or what it could do!"

"And besides, it's not like Gave the guy a Get Out of Jail Free card, okay? Geez, cut us some slack willya?" Beast Boy asked.

Director turned on Beast Boy with a ferocious, leonine stare that outclassed anything Beast Boy could manage. "I'll cut you some-"

"That will be quite enough, Director," someone said as he opened the door behind Blackfire and Raven.

The Titans turned in the direction of the voice. The speaker was a well-dressed, very elderly man in a motorized wheelchair, but despite his decrepit physical appearance, he gave the impression that he was a man who was used to power.

Unlike Director Page, whose manner forcefully demanded subservience from everyone around her, this man's conduct seemed to suggest that the power he wielded was not so much something gained, but something granted; it was as if his having power was as natural, and as expected, as the force of gravity.

"Sorry if I was interrupting anything," he said, "but when I heard of what had happened, I rushed here as soon as I could."

"Sir," Director Page began. "These _children_, sir-"

"Did their very best, given the circumstances they were placed under," the man said firmly. "We could ask for nothing more or less from them. Oh, where are my manners? I'm Robert Walton, owner of the Aquinas Corporation,' he said kindly, holding out a hand as he approached them.

"Um, thanks," Raven said slowly, as she took Robert's hand.

He must have sensed her bewilderment. "This device here," he said, indicating a small black rectangle on his wheelchair's right side, "is connected to the same database as Miss Page's-"

"_Director_ Page's," Starfire corrected- not out of any sort of malice, but out of fear that Page would get angry at Mr. Walton. The Director shot her a dirty look, but Robert just laughed.

"All right then," he said easily, smiling. "It's connected to the same database as _Director Page's_ glasses are. And maybe I'm missing something, but from where I'm sitting, the Teen Titans performed excellently."

"Sir," Director Page said, "they outnumbered the thief six to one. With all due respect, I believe the odds were decisively in their favour."

"But we must remember, the thief was using a suit that was constructed with the explicit purpose of using Xinothium as an offensive weapon."

"A suit invented by one of the Titans themselves, sir! And stolen directly from their legendary Tower!" Page said.

"I have not seen your security systems perform better," Robert said, with the cool, calm serenity of a chess grandmaster coming to the victorious end of a game planned hundreds of moves in advance. "And besides," he said, as the Director's fists clenched, "that young lady- Starfire, wasn't it? Well, Starfire, you had a point. You Titans don't really know much about Xinothium, do you?"

"Well, Robin and Cyborg know about it," Raven conceded.

"Yet the rest of you do not, and as they say, information is power." He gave them a kindly smile. "What say you indulge a poor, disabled old man, and let me show you around this facility? I warn you though, I have a tendency to ramble."

"Sir!" Director Page said, rising to her feet in indignation. "You cannot possibly be serious!"

"But I am," Robert replied calmly. "Please, Director Page, I will not show them any of our corporate secrets- merely educate them about what Xinothium can truly be capable of. Hopefully, the next time Red X comes around, the Titans will have a full understanding of what he could do, and prepare accordingly."

He looked back at the Titans. "Now, if you children would come this way- heh," he smirked, his eyes twinkling, "this is quite the Willy Wonka moment, isn't it?"

(scene change)

As Red X stared at the sky above him, he was reminded, for some reason, of Charlie Bucket. Maybe it was the fact that his current hideout was nothing more than a dilapidated wooden shack within the warehouse district. Maybe it was the hunger pangs gnawing away at his stomach.

Or maybe it was the fact that he now felt that he had the Golden Ticket he needed to save his family. True, his 'Golden Ticket' was actually a small bunch of red Xinothium filled tubes, and his 'family' consisted of just one person, who was certainly no Grandpa Bucket… but the analogy still stood.

He picked up one tube…


	4. Elsewhere and Elsewhen

**Elsewhere And Elsewhen**

The diner was closed, the lights in it out, and while most of its staff lives a few miles away in a nearby small town, the diner's owners themselves stayed in a small two-storey house just behind it, a little house in the middle of a highway in the middle of the desert. It was lonely, and that was the way they liked it-

_Knock-knock-knock-knock._

Silence.

_Knock-knock-knock-knock._

Silence.

_Knock-knock-knock-_

"Yes, yes, I'm coming, I'm coming! God-_dammit_!"

The door opened, and a very angry Mama, clad in nightgown and curlers, stood glaring at the two well-dressed men at her front door. "Do you know what time it is?" she asked angrily.

"Yes, ma'am, it's-"

"Let me tell you what time it is! It's 1:30 in the morning, that's what time it is! Do you want to tell me what you're doing on my doorstep at 1:30 in the morning?"

"Well-"

"Shut it, boy, what you're doing is waking me up from my beauty sleep, that's what you're doing! And as you can damn well see, I need my beauty sleep! Now what do you want, boy?"

One of the men, the one who had knocked, cleared his throat as his partner sent a message on his cell phone. "I'm sorry for the interruption, ma'am. I'm Agent Henry, FBI," he said, holding up his badge, "and that's my partner, Agent Walter. We're here on a matter of national security." "

"National security?" Mama repeated, incredulous. "You saying I got _terrorists_ in my house?"

"Something like that ma'am," Agent Henry said grimly. "I do not mean to alarm you, but we have reason to suspect that at least one of the people dining in your establishment today may have had ties to an organized terrorist network."

"Your daughter- where is she?" Agent Walter said abruptly in a rasping, gravelly voice.

"My daughter? What's she got to do with it?"

"Our preliminary investigations indicate that your daughter might have the best chance of identifying our suspect," Agent Henry said. "Is she here?"

"Does it look like she's home? Damn fool girl went to town with her friends," Mama said, meaning the nearby settlement, "and she was supposed to be back hours ago! Had to send my poor husband to pick her up! Poor man's too old to be doing this sort of thing! I swear, that girl's gonna drive me crazy! You have children of your own, Henry? You got teenagers?"

"No, ma'am, I don't have any children, and it's_ Agent _Hen-"

"Then let me tell you about teenagers, Henry- teenagers is nothing but trouble, trouble with a capital T," Mama said, opening her fridge door. As a young girl, her relationship with Thomas was not something that the community would have approved of, to say the least. Mary's mother didn't raise her to swing from a rope, she didn't, and she and Thomas always made sure to be careful.

But that didn't mean they didn't have their share of close calls….

"_Seems some good citizen saw you and the Kincaid boy together, Mary. Now," he said, letting himself into her house, "you know what happens to folks who don't know the rules, right?"_

"_Yes Mister Sheriff sir, I know," Mary had said, trying to seem as innocent as possible and hoping the Sheriff would not hear the terror in her voice. "I wasn't with Tom- Mr. Kincaid, sir."_

_She froze, terrified that the Sheriff heard her slip of the tongue. But he had been preoccupied with a drawer in one of the living room cabinets. "What's that you say, girl?"  
_

"_I- I said I wasn't with Mr. Kincaid, sir."_

"_You sure about that, honey? I mean, I asked around, and it seemed like Tom wasn't at the Grady's house last night like he told his parents. You know anything about that, Mary?"_

"_N-no, Mister Malcolm, sir."_

"…_Well, I better be going now," he said after a short pause. As he was walking out the door, he stopped, and turned to Mary. "Don't worry," he added, fixing her with a piercing stare, "if you ain't done nothing wrong, you ain't got nothing to fear."_

_That night, she made a phone call. An hour later, Tom brought his car to her door, took everything of hers they could fit into Tom's car alongside his own stuff, and drove northwards. _

_The next day, the newspapers carried news about how a house in her neighbourhood burned down in 'an unfortunate accident'._

She never wanted to remember it again, but there was something about these two agents that reminded her of the Sheriff. Something in their stance, the way they constantly looked around her house- there was something wrong here, and she had to warn Tom and Dannie.

(scene change)

"Come _on_, Dad, it wasn't that crazy!" Jessie Denton said, laughing.

"God Almighty, Dannie," Tom said, as he joined his adopted daughter in laughter. "You challenged Stevie to an arm wrestling contest! Man's got ten times your weight and at least two feet on you!"

"Yeah Dad, but I was winning! I had almost two hundred dollars in the bag!"

"Now, now, Dannie, you know how Mama feel about that sort of thing; woman won't even let me spend a red cent from any poker game I win- think I've got more than five grand in the bank that I can't spend without her permission, not including interest."

"Five grand?" Dannie asked, her eyes wide as dinner plates. She'd never even seen a hundred dollars, much less a thousand.

"Oh yeah. Mama says it's supposed to be for a rainy day, but if I know your Mama like I know your Mama, she's just too damn much of a good Christian to let me spend any of them wages of sin."

He turned towards Jessie with a conspiratorial grin. "So, Dannie- how'd you do it?"

"How'd I do what?"

"Aw, come on, Dannie, I know you're smarter than that- how's a little girl like you almost beat Big Stevie?"

"Well- wait, hold on Dad, it's my cell. Hello? Mama?" Dannie said, answering the phone. "Sorry, Mama, Dad's driving."

"It's okay Dannie- the road's long and empty, and we ain't driving that fast anyway," he said, holding his hand out. "Hello, Mary?" he said, after Dannie handed him the phone. "What's the matter, honey?"

His face fell, much to Jessie's alarm. "Who's in the house again, Mary?" he asked. "Yeah, yeah, she's with me," he added, looking in Jessie's direction, an instant before the car suddenly swerved.

"Dad?" Jessie asked, worried. "Dad, is something wrong?"

But her father was not paying attention. "What… what was that you said?"

(scene change)

"I said, is our daughter with that Malcolm White boy again? You tell that daughter of ours, if I done told her once, I done told her a thousand times! Malcolm White's a bad boy! Malcolm White's a bad influence! Hell, Tom, you know what I think! You go tell her that while you get her home! And after you do, I'll tell her that! God-_damn_! Bringing the police in here!" She paused, while her husband answered. "You do that Tom. Good night."

"I take it you don't get along with this Malcolm White boy much?" Agent Henry asked, the meal Mama had set out for him untouched.

"I don't, my Dannie does, that's the problem," Mama said. "You two ain't eating?"

"We're not hungry," Walter rasped.

"And why not?" Mama asked, drawing herself up to her full height. "Let me tell you-"

"Tell me," Agent Henry interrupted, "Mrs. Kincaid, why do you call your daughter Dannie?"

"Say what?" Mama asked, eyebrow raised.

"Her name- it's Jessie Denton, isn't it? Jessica Denton?"

Agent Walter suddenly sat bolt upright, and his head turned to Mama in way she found disconcertingly unnatural. "Jessica Denton, age 16, blood type AB, adopted by Thomas Kincaid and Mary Albert Kincaid three years ago-"

"Right, right," Agent Henry nodded, before turning to Mama. "Tell me, Mrs. Kincaid, have you noticed anything… strange about your daughter? Perhaps she has exhibited, shall we say, talents which may seem a little-"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Mama asked defiantly, even as a cold chill of terror sank into her. "Who are you?"

"Your daughter. Where is she?" Agent Walter asked, his rasp deeper, and more… mechanical?

"I ain't telling you nothing!" Mama whispered threateningly, as Walter grabbed hold of her. She tried to struggle, but Agent Walter's grip was iron.

"Hey, hey, now," Agent Henry laughed, his arms held out in a conciliatory pose. "Don't worry, Miss Denton'll be here," he said. "All we have to do is wait."

(scene change)

"You don't have to do this, Dad," Jessie whispered hoarsely as the car turned at the junction. From here, it was only a few more minutes' drive to their home- ten at the most.

"Sorry, baby, but you're wrong," her adoptive father said in a soft whisper. "Until death do us part, and all that."

"But Dad, they're looking for me!"

"So, that- wait, how'd you know that?"

"Come on, dad, it wasn't hard to figure out."

"Yeah, but I never said anything about a 'they', did I?"

The car screeched to a halt. "Is there something you're not telling me, Dannie?"

Dannie looked away, tears beginning to well up in her cheeks. At first, Tom thought that perhaps his tone was too harsh, that whatever his daughter may have done he'd forgive her, but before he could say so, she beat him to the punch.

"Dad?" she asked, tears running down her cheeks, "I know this may sound strange, but I need you to do as I say."

(scene change)

In the kitchen, Mama sat still, or at least as still as she could, considering that she was effectively being held hostage. Next to her was Agent Henry, whistling tunelessly, while Agent Walter stood at the living room window, his hand on his earpiece. From there he could survey the only road by which Tom's car could approach.

All Mama could do at the moment was to wait, pray that the 'Agents' left her alone and hope that her husband had the good sense to-

"Malcolm White- who is he?" Agent Walter asked suddenly, his hand dropping from his earpiece as he turned to her.

"He's-" Mama swallowed nervously. "He's just some good-for-nothing boy-"

"No, he isn't," he growled. "He was your hometown's Sheriff, wasn't he?"

"Like I said," Mama snapped through gritted teeth, knowing the game was up. "A good-for-nothing boy."

"A code," Agent Henry said flatly. "Some sort of crude code."

"A warning," Agent Walter added, disgustedly. "He knows. She knows."

Agent Henry's expression was blank for a moment, then broke into a smile. "So what? We lose the element of surprise, true- but she's nothing we can't handle."

"She? Dannie?" Mama asked incredulously. "Look, I don't know what she done, but you better leave her alone-"

"_Shut up!_" Agent Walter growled- and this time, it _really_ was a growl, the kind a lion, tiger or bear made before leaping towards its prey.

"Gag her, Geryon," Walter said, looking out the window at a pair of approaching lights. "Guess who's here."

He placed his hand on his earpiece. "Alpha- this is Minotaur. We have Hippolyta in sight. We will proceed with the extraction immediately." He turned towards the now gagged Mama with a malicious grin. "Don't worry, there will not be any witnesses."

(scene change)

As the elevator descended, Director Page smiled. "Good work. I look forward to hearing from you."

"Who was that?" Robert Walton asked over the elevator's whirring.

"Just our Massachusetts agent reporting the successful receipt of processing equipment," Page replied, smiling serenely.

"Wonderful!" Robert said. Turning to Robin, he added, "I'm thinking of expanding my operations. Jump City's great, but it's a bit too, too- too _exciting_ to be processing something like Xinothium, don't you think? At least, in such large amounts."

"No argument here," Robin replied, when there was a loud _clunk_, and the lift came to a stop.

"Ah, we're here!" Robert said, as the lift doors opened, and the Titans' gaped in astonishment at the sight before them. "It's a small little place I like to call work," Robert added. "I know it's not much, but it serves its purpose. Now," he said, with eyebrows raised in excitement, "let's not waste a minute more. On with the tour!"


	5. Introspections

**Chapter Six: Introspections**

Director Page watched as the doors closed, and she did not shift her gaze until she was sure the Titans had left. "I don't trust them," she said quietly.

"Of course you don't," Robert laughed. "That's why I hired you."

"You should not have given them the… 'tour'," Page said. "They have seen too much. They might inform our… competitors."

"Now, now, Simone, watch yourself- you're starting to sound like you're an extra in a bad action movie," Robert chided good-naturedly, still in high spirits. "Don't be so paranoid- I showed them nothing more than they would have seen in a company promotional video."

"If it were up to me, sir, I would not have shown them anything at all. Especially Stone's son."

"Well it isn't up to you," Robert said in a mock petulant tone. "And like you said, he's Stone's son, an _old friend's_ son," he added in emphasis.

He looked out the glass doors of the building. "We can trust the Titans- after all, if we can't trust them, who can we trust to keep quiet?"

(scene change)

"You okay, Cyborg?" Beast Boy asked from the T-Car's passenger seat.

"You say something, Beast Boy?" Cyborg asked, startled out of his reverie.

"I don't know, you just seemed kinda quiet since we left," Beast Boy said.

Cyborg sighed. "You remember, during the tour, when Robert-"

"He asked us to call him 'Bob', remember?" Beast Boy interjected, trying to lighten the mood.

"Whatever," Cyborg said. "Anyway, remember when he was saying all that stuff about how Xinothium could be used to make all kinds of medical equipment?"

"Uh, yeah, kinda," Beast Boy said, scratching the back of his head. He remembered some of what Robert had said, but his memories were mostly concerned with Robert's explanation of how Xinothium could also be adapted to military uses, and how cool they were-

"Well, remember how he said that he could make nanomachines that could repair the human body? And that this technology was developed like, a few years back?"

The words 'during the time of my accident' hung unsaid in the air. At least Beast Boy now knew what this was about. "But Cyborg, he also said that, that, uh, 'The technology wasn't perfected yet'," Beast Boy said, quoting Walton directly.

"Yeah, I heard it too, Like how I'd have to take Xinothium stabilizer treatments every few months or so. Or how the process would be irreversible- that even if the technology advanced, the stuff they put inside me couldn't be upgraded, thanks to the surgery they'd need to put it inside me in the first place."

"Yeah, so-"

"That might be a problem for other people, Beast Boy," Cyborg said, his voice bitter, "but not for me! I mean, yeah, sure I'd need a lotta surgery, but it ain't as if all _this_ was just one big Band-Aid!" Cyborg said, holding up his cybernetic arm. "I could have lived with getting an injection or two every month if- if…"

He sighed. "If it meant I could've been just a little more normal."

"…Maybe your dad didn't know anything about it?" Beast Boy offered weakly.

"He knew," Cyborg said flatly. "At least, he knew Robert. I remember seeing their pictures in their old college yearbook." The panels on Cyborg's hands seemed to glow brighter as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Dad used to joke that he should have just scrapped his plans of starting his own company and worked for Walton instead, 'cos then he'd make more money."

"Yeah, so like I said, maybe-"

"He knew," Cyborg stated flatly. "Trust me, he knew. Stone Industries and the Aquinas Corporation have worked on too many joint projects for my dad not to know."

He sighed. "Sorry about this, Beast Boy. I just have to get this off my chest, that's all."

"Hey, I get it," Beast Boy said lamely. It was all he could do; he'd never seen his friend so depressed. "Uh, I know this is a stupid question, but- you'll be okay, right?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're not gonna do anything… uh, I mean- you'renotgonnadoanythingcrazyareyou?" he said in one long burst.

"_What?_ Come on, Beast Boy, I don't look that bad- do I?"

Beast Boy nodded emphatically. "Dude, if you could've seen how you looked just now, you'd be scared too. Maybe you could ask Raven for some help-"

"Look, I can handle it, okay?" Cyborg shouted. "Now drop it," he added dangerously.

The rest of the ride home was silent until the Titans pulled up at the Tower.

"Where are Raven and my sister?" Starfire asked as she landed. As if on cue, Robin's communicator chirped.

"Robin, Blackfire and I'll be coming back a little late," Raven said.

"Why? Is something wrong?" Robin asked, concerned.

Raven sighed, and the Titans could practically _hear_ her roll her eyes. "No. Believe it or not, Blackfire's suddenly decided to be romantic."

(scene change)

"You know, you could have said that a lot better," Blackfire said grumpily as Raven sat down and joined her on the skyscraper's roof to watch the moonrise.

"I know," Raven said, giving Blackfire just a hint of a smile.

"Hmph, maybe I've taught you a little too well," Blackfire grumbled as she put an arm around Raven and drew her close.

"Perhaps," Raven replied, unresisting.

"You make me sound like I'm your pet," Blackfire said, unwilling to let go of either the subject or Raven.

"You're not?" Raven asked.

"Yep, I definitely taught you too well," Blackfire said as she broke into a smile. She just couldn't help herself.

There they sat on that rooftop, letting the cool night air and moonlight wash over them, their height muting the sounds of a city that had only now just truly waken far, far below. Raven didn't want to spoil the mood, but-

"So, what's this all about?" she asked.

"What, your pet can't just be romantic if she wants to?" Blackfire pouted.

"My pet can. You can't," Raven said, looking at Blackfire skeptically. "You're planning something, aren't you?"

"I swear, Raven, by the moons of Rekshall, I'm not planning anything!" Blackfire laughed.

Raven gave her a raised eyebrow.

She sighed. "Well, not 'planning' something, but…"

"Yes?" Raven asked.

Blackfire didn't answer at first; instead, she sighed and pointed up to the sky. "Somewhere out there, is Tamaran," she whispered, "and places like Nal Hutta, Andoria, Minbar…"

"You're homesick?" Raven asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. She tried to think of it as irrational, but she knew perfectly well that there was nothing that really tied Blackfire to Earth- save her.

And there were times when she did wonder if she, a mere girl, could hope to compare to the majesty of space…

"Something like that. Don't worry, Raven, I'm not going anywhere- at least, not without you," Blackfire winked. Without waiting for an answer, Blackfire pressed on. "Look, Raven- have you ever thought about, you know, taking a little time off?"

"Er, Blackfire, you do know being a Teen Titan isn't exactly a 24-hour job, right?"

"Yeah, but what do we do during our time off? Stay in the Tower, or go out in the city- _bo-ring_!"

"And you're suggesting…?"

"Space, Raven!" Blackfire exulted. "There's so much I want to show you Raven, so much you have to see and do-"

She stopped when she saw the knowing look Raven was giving her. "Okay, so I'll admit I miss the fun of being in space myself," she said dismissively, "but that's the point! I want to have fun, Raven- and it's not going to be fun unless you're with me."

"This sounds rehearsed," Raven replied dryly.

"I hope so," an unruffled Blackfire said, "I was practicing it ever since we left the Aquinas HQ. So what do you say, Raven? The next chance we get, maybe after all this stuff with Red X settles down, what say you and me go out- not to some restaurant on Earth, or anything boring like that, but out there," she said, sweeping her arms to the heavens, "and really enjoying ourselves?"

She turned to Raven, a visionary gleam in her eyes. "Think about it, Raven- we could see the underwater cities of Mon Calamari or Trilar, see some ancient ruins on Aiur, travel the Webway-oh, that reminds me; you think you've got emotional discipline? Wait'll you see Ulthwe Farseers! I'll take you to their Craftworld; they'll teach you a thing or two about control! And if you like, we could maybe even visit Nazin…" she said with a lascivious smile.

"What's Nazin?"

"It's the homeworld of a race of shapeshifters," Blackfire winked. "And if they're not fun enough, we can always go to Commorragh," she continued, her grin turning downright perverted. "Sure, that'd take some doing, considering it's in another dimension or something like that, but trust me- it's worth it!"

She then flew off the ledge, hovering in midair in front of Raven. "There's a whole galaxy waiting for us, Raven! And don't worry, we'll have enough money to spend on ourselves- just as long as you don't tell anyone we have it, or ask me where it came from," she winked mischievously.

Raven opened her mouth to speak, when Blackfire placed a finger across her lips. "And best of all- at least in my opinion- is that we can get those freeloaders in the Justice League to cover for us!"

Raven smiled. "You better not let Robin hear you say that- you know how he feels about Batman."

"I'm not talking about Batman! I'm talking about people like- like Supergirl! Or Star Girl! Especially Supergirl! I mean, she has to be good for something besides looking hot!"

Raven's gaze locked with Blackfire's. She saw the hope in the Tamaranean's eyes, and she sighed. "Blackfire-"

"I know, I know," she said casually. "I wasn't being serious."

Raven blinked. "You weren't?"

"Of course not. Come on, Raven, we both know Jump City would fall apart if you- I mean, I wasn't here to protect it."

"And all that talk about leaving?" Raven asked quietly.

"I can dream, Raven, I can dream."

She turned to the Azerath. Her eyes had lost the mirth that had danced in them just moments before, and now were piercing, serious. "In case you've forgotten, the Centauri haven't said anything about my probation on Earth ending, and even if they did, there's the rest of the galaxy to deal with."

"The rest of the galaxy?" Raven asked incredulously.

"Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little," Blackfire said, waving a hand dismissively. "But the real reason that I'm not going to leave is simple; it's because I know that even if you have the entire Green Lantern Corps volunteering to take our places, you still won't leave, because you're always so frelling concerned about the people you're leaving behind."

Raven closed her eyes, and held Blackfire closer. "Blackfire-"

"Stop it, Raven," Blackfire said softly as she nuzzled Raven's neck. "I told you; it's just not going to be fun if you're not coming along with me- but that's not the point."

She locked gazes with Raven again. "I can't care less what the Centauri, or the Merchants' Guild, or whoever I've pissed off thinks- if I want to leave Earth right now, I could. But I won't, because you're here, and I know that's not gonna change because you're just not selfish enough to think of yourself," she smiled. "And you know what? I'm okay with that."

"You are?"

"Of course!" Blackfire said mischievously. "Because if you're not thinking about yourself, you're probably thinking about me," she said, ignoring Raven's eye rolling, "and I'm not stupid enough to risk losing that just because I miss people trying to use me as target practice. What can I say?" she continued, her voice growing husky as she moved closer to kiss Raven, "I've got a good thing going on here-"

This time it was Raven's turn to place a finger across Blackfire's lips. "I'm not sure I can believe you," she said with a sad grimness.

"What?" Blackfire asked, her heart falling into the pit of her stomach at the sudden change in Raven's demeanour.

"There is something I need to know first," Raven said, moving closer, and it was only when they were merely an inch or two apart that Blackfire saw the amusement in her eyes as she asked, "So… you think Supergirl's hot, huh?"

(scene change)

Mama looked back at the burning house, although the term 'funeral pyre' would have suited it just as well. The flames seemed to only grow more distant and not any less bright as the car drove away.

Not that it registered much on Mama's mind, considering the story that her daughter was telling her through her gasps, tears and whispered apologies.

"Don't speak, Dannie- you're only gonna hurt yourself."

"Please, Daddy," Jessie had said quietly. "I have to tell you. I… I just have to tell someone. And Dad? It's Jessie."

Her story seemed so incredible, like it came out of one of the many horrible science fiction movies she and Tom used to watch at the drive-ins of their youth, but looking back at her house…

"_Now, now, don't worry, little girl, you'll be all right," the old man in the white coat said three years ago, as the lights turned on and the doors to her cell opened. "Your name's Jessie, right? Jessie Denton? That's a pretty name."_

_They were the first words Jessie heard after the men took her from the box on the street, where she had been sleeping the night before. For some reason, Jessie remembered the insignia on the man's badge; 'Armacham' it said, in big, silver letters. _

_Behind him was another man in black uniform. Unlike the man in the white coat, this man's face seemed to be locked in a permanent scowl, and the thirteen-year old Jessie Denton shrank back, terrified._

_Now that her eyes were getting used to the light, she could see the kind man a little better, and she shrank back even more. Back on the streets, she had a friend named Henry Two Feathers, an Indian who ran away from a reservation to try find a better life in the city, and who wound up trying to find it at the bottom of a bottle. _

_This man reminded Jessie of him; he had the same darkish brown skin, the same comforting, throaty rasp of a voice she had come to associate with Henry- but if anything, he frightened Jessie more than the black-uniformed man. It wasn't just his face, horribly scarred and burned from some horrible accident; it was the way his kind voice and demeanour never seemed to reach his eyes…_

"_Forget it, Rainbird," the black uniformed man said. "Let's just drag her out."_

It was then Jessie started describing the experiments; horribly painful surgical procedures and implantations, performed without anaesthetic, and that barely left her conscious. Under normal circumstances, she would have blacked out, but the researchers used massive drug cocktails to keep her awake and fully conscious.

It would have been unbearable- if it were not for her friend.

_The lights had just gone out, and Jessie welcomed the darkness, even more now than she did when she was living on the streets... how long ago was it?_

"_Three months."_

_Jessie looked up. "What?"_

"_Three months. You were asking yourself how long you were here. Three months."_

_She looked around for the source of the sound. "Who are you? Where are you?"_

"_The cell on your right. Name's Rex. I heard what they were doing to you down there. Thought you might want someone to talk to. Sorry about taking so long; I wasn't sure if I could trust you. Don't ask why, that's just the way I am."  
_

"_Hey Rex," Jessie said, unaware that she was crying with relief at hearing a friendly voice. "I didn't know they talk about me."_

"_They don't. I meant to say that I heard you."  
_

_She heard him sigh. "Trust me, I know how it feels like."_

He hadn't talked to her before, Jessie said, because he couldn't. His throat had been badly damaged by the last experiment they had performed on him, and he had to sit there in silence while… while…

"You don't have to go on, Dann- Jessie."

She didn't speak for a moment, and then it came out in one burst. "There were other kids there! Other people, people like me! They kidnapped people from the streets, or from orphanages, or they adopted foster kids who nobody wanted!"

She broke down, sobbing. "They wanted people who wouldn't be missed…"

_Rex was her only friend there. The facility had a 'recreation period', where the test subjects were let loose into a courtyard, ostensibly to 'minimize psychological damage through subject intermingling', but some of the other children, like the psionic Alicia Spade (later better known to the world as Ace) were just too traumatized by the experiments to do anything but whimper in whatever quiet corner they could find._

_But there were others far more terrifying, like the other future members of the Royal Flush gang. Like another girl, only slightly older than Jessie, and undergoing the same experiments as Jessie. They not only grew to accept the experiments being done upon them, but enjoyed it, enjoyed the power it promised to bring them, and what was a little pain compared to that?_

_Especially the other girl; one day, as she was being wheeled out of surgery, Jessie overheard a conversation between her guards and the medical staff around her. They said that the other girl (Jessie never found out her name) actually volunteered for experiments, that she'd refuse painkillers, and that she'd laugh through the procedure until she blacked out._

_One of the guards said that, last he heard, she requested that the doctors give her something to stop that from happening, or at least give her just enough painkillers to keep her conscious._

Jessie fell silent for a moment, before abruptly telling her adoptive parents that one night, she and Rex escaped. No details, nothing. Just that

"We got out. And then we split up."

And Mama, full of questions, could only nod and hold her adopted daughter close…

_Jessie and the two false agents were fast- too fast, at least for Mama's aged eyes, but she doubted that she'd have been able to see them even if she was forty years younger. The three of them seemed to move in a blur, at speeds Mama was sure no human should have been able to achieve._

_Then, another blur, a scream, and Mama screamed silently when she saw Jessie briefly come into focus for a second, holding the arm she had ripped of Agent Walter. Where it there should have been flesh and bone, there were wires, motors, metal things (_Tom oughta know what they are_, her shocked mind thought, as it tried to keep itself from snapping)._

_A few more blurs in the deadly confined space of the kitchen, and next thing Mama knew, both agents were soon lying on the kitchen floor, badly wounded- no, heavily damaged with sparks, hydraulic fluids and unidentifiable liquids draining out onto the floor._

"_We have to get out of here!" Jessie had yelled, and picking up her mother and father in each of her hands, carried them out of the house, getting them behind Tom's car a split second before the agents self-destructed._

Mama turned back to look behind her. Even now, so far away, the light of the flames didn't seem to grow any fainter.

(scene change)

Even now, several hours after he had injected himself with the raw Xinothium, the burning pain had only died down to a dull ache, and for the hundredth time, Red X cursed the primitive Xinothium manufactories within his body.

He cursed the pain they caused him. He cursed the way they worked, drawing electrical energy directly from his nervous system, but activating every pain sensory nerve in his body while doing it.

He cursed the way they made him a thief. He cursed the scientists who had done this to him, altering his bone structure to stop making red blood cells- which meant that he needed the Xinothium nanomachines to take their place in carrying oxygen throughout his body. He cursed the fact that he had to risk his life every few months in order to save it, thanks to the inefficiency of the primitive system, and the unofficial Aquinas monopoly on Xinothium.

But soon Rex Morden stopped cursing, and got up, putting his mask on.

Jessie was in trouble, and Red X would save her.

_Additional Disclaimers:_

_All corporations, alien worlds and races named within this chapter are the property of their respective owners._


	6. Rollercoaster

**Rollercoaster**

"Ugh," Blackfire said, rummaging through the Titans' movie collections.

"What's wrong?" Raven asked, the dim, flickering light of the television somehow flattering the young Azerath than any amount of romantic candlelight ever could. At least, that was the way Blackfire saw it, and anyone who disagreed can just go lick his or her _atarak_.

"I can't see anything!" Blackfire complained. After an…'incident' earlier in which she used her eyebolts to devastating effect, her night vision had been effectively ruined for a few hours.

"I'll get the lights-"

"Don't you dare!" Blackfire said with an angry pout.

"Then let me help-"

"Oh no you don't!" Blackfire growled. "I said I'll give you dinner and a movie, and I mean dinner and a movie, so sit down!"

Raven grinned, and leaned back. Not for the first time did she take note of how much Blackfire had changed since they had first met; back then, 'dinner and a movie' would have been the last things Raven would have associated with the angry Tamaranean, and the thought of _having_ that dinner and a movie with that Tamaranean? Madness.

And yet here she was, lying back on the couch while watching Blackfire curse in who knows how many different alien languages. They would have gone to a cinema, if it weren't for what happened earlier, and dinner would have to be improvised from the popcorn and snacks they had managed to grab- but it was a typical dinner-and-movie-date in all other regards.

Raven sighed in bemused happiness and thoughtful wonder. Come to think of it, she wasn't exactly date material either; she knew, with the benefit of hindsight, that Beast Boy had been strongly attracted to her- still was, poor boy, even though he had become reconciled to the fact that she would never be able to see him as anything other than a close sibling. But Raven could not help but wonder- what if? What if she hadn't felt so caught up in controlling her emotions? What if she had given Beast Boy the same chance she had given Blackfire? What then?

And while she was on the subject: why Blackfire at all, callous though it may sound? Before her, Raven had always managed to keep her emotional distance from all she knew- so how did she now end up here, waiting patiently on the couch while Blackfire squinted at movie titles, trying to surprise them both with something watchable? Before Blackfire, Raven had been careful to become no more than a good friend to those she was close with, careful to prevent her emotions from tearing her and those she loved apart, and yet the memories of their kiss atop the Tower, the way her hands caressed her cheek- if anything, Raven was more emotionally grounded and open than she had ever been.

Oh, of course it would have been easy to say that by falling in love, Raven had just forced herself to come to terms with her emotions, but she knew it went far deeper than that. Blackfire was… special, and that was all there was to it, or at least that was as well as Raven could explain it.

"I guess love is blind after all," she mused softly- but not softly enough.

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" Blackfire growled, quite annoyed by this time.

"Sorry, bad choice of words," Raven said calmly. "Why not just take one? It doesn't have to be any good; I'll watch whatever you want to watch."

"Sorry Raven, but since I'm the one looking, I make the rules on what to watch, not ours," Blackfire said playfully, then scowled. "Besides, there's nothing here I want to watch. I mean, this one doesn't even have any title!"

"What do you mean?"

"Like I said, the thing's only got a synopsis on it."

Raven looked blank for a minute, then smirked lightly. "Let me guess, it says on the cover that-" and here Raven cleared her throat and took a deep breath before continuing, "'Max Lance Steele-Rockhard is a daredevil rogue cop turned daredevil rogue archaeologist turned daredevil rogue mercenary who must decode the Rabelais Conundrum before undead Communist Nazi ninja aliens use the Pyramids to travel through time and assassinate George Washington before he builds the White House- all this, to the MAXtreme!' "

After Raven was finished, she raised herself up on one arm and enjoyed the sight before her. Blackfire's eyes opened as wide as dinner plates, and had her jaw been any heavier it would have went straight through the floor, instead of gently coiling at the startled Tamaranean's feet.

"How… how did you know that?" she asked, when a look of comprehension crossed her face. "Wait- you've got your mind reading powers back?"

"Hardly," Raven scoffed. "That's Robin's favourite movie."

"…Frelling hezmana- you're serious?"

"When aren't I?"

"When are you?" Blackfire countered playfully. "So, really- _this_ is Robin's favourite movie?"

"It gets worse. All that on the cover? That's not the synopsis- that's the _title_."

"…Robin?"

Raven simply nodded in reply.

"And he's the leader of you Titans?"

" 'Us' Titans?" Raven asked, eyebrow raised.

"Well, let's just say I hope the Lantern Corps has an opening."

She looked at the DVD again ('Special MAXtreme Director's Cut!' the box proudly proclaimed), and turned to Raven with a mischievous smile. "You said you'll watch anything I wanted to watch, right?"

"Oh, no," Raven said in mock dismay.

"Oh yes," Blackfire said as she put the DVD inside and played it. Here's your popcorn."

Ten minutes passed

Twenty minutes.

Thirty minutes.

Drugs, laughing gas, paint thinners and alcohol can kill up to 300,000 brain cells a day.

The makers of this movie were obviously shooting for a per-minute rate.

"I do not believe it," Blackfire said slowly and carefully, in what could only be described as the most perfect mixture of awe and horror the universe would ever experience.

"Me neither," Raven said in the exact same tones, her left eye twitching slowly.

"… Maybe the Lanterns have room for two?" Blackfire said, before dissolving into helpless laughter. "And I thought my sister was dumb!"

"No, she's not," Raven said calmly.

"This is Robin's favourite movie. She's dating Robin. Isn't that good enough for you?"

"No."

"Yeah, me neither," an unfazed Blackfire sighed happily, as she snuggled up to Raven and leaned her head against the Azerath's shoulder. "Come on, I was joking, you know that."

"I know…" Raven trailed off as she gently held Blackfire against her.

They sat still for a few blissful minutes, while images of Max Lance Steele-Rockhard (he was never referred by anything other than his full name through the movie) cut down swath after swath of Generic Villains™ with his faithful AK-47 in one hand and laser-katana chainsaw in the other.

"Raven?" Blackfire asked, her soft voice somehow making itself heard though the barrage of explosions, gunfire and screams coming from the TV.

"Yes, Blackfire?"

"Sorry about tonight."

"Never mind."

"Robin's going to go nuts, you know that."

"I do."

Blackfire nodded, and sighed contentedly as she nuzzled up against Raven. "Just so you know," she said.

Raven looked down at the sleeping Blackfire, and all of a sudden, she realized that she had never truly seen just how beautiful Blackfire was, just how vulnerable she was too- and most importantly, just how much she had sacrificed. Where Raven had quite literally escaped Hell itself (albeit with a little help) to find acceptance, friendship, and even love in a world alien to her nature, Blackfire's situation was entirely the opposite. It couldn't have been easy for her; her whole world, her whole life, all that she knew- they lay beyond Earth's atmosphere. Even if it meant a life on the run, and no matter how well she hid it, Raven knew that Blackfire missed the life she led before…

A life she had, for all intents and purposes, sacrificed to be with some half-breed witch on a backwater planet…

"Raven, what's wrong?" Blackfire asked, startled out of her half-sleep by the sound of the Azerath crying.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong-"

"Raven," Blackfire warned, her tones stern.

"…You gave up so much, Blackfire," Raven whispered. "Just to be with me."

"What? Is that all this is about?" Blackfire laughed, when she saw the sad look on Raven's face. "Hey, don't worry," she said, smiling gently. "It was worth it," she added softly.

"But how can you be so sure?"

"Raven, you're looking at the greatest thief in the known galaxy! I'm good at telling how much something's worth- and trust me," she said gently, "I'd rather be here, watching Robin's dumb movie with you, than anywhere else I know."

"Thank you," Raven said, holding Blackfire tighter against her. "And don't worry, I won't tell anyone what you've just told me."

"You sure you haven't got your mind reading powers back?" Blackfire laughed as she returned the embrace. "And besides, it's not really that much fun anyway.

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, well," Blackfire said as she sat up to get a better look at Raven. "I may have been exaggerating a little."

"Wow, that's new."

In response, Blackfire stuck her tongue out at Raven, before continuing. "Most of the time I'd end up in some sleazy bar, getting drunk on juma juice or something, and a creature with more eyes than teeth told me to get the frelling kriff off its seat, right before some ten foot tall four-armed thing tells me and my new friend we're in _his_ seat. And then there would be a bar fight. Oh, the bar fight."

She sighed happily. "And then there'd be explosions, and blaster fire, and I'd probably end up having to hitchhike on a space hulk until the heat dies down. Trust me, giving all that up for you was an easy decision."

"Are you sure?"

"Raven, do you know what a Squiggoth is? Or more to the point, do you know how it smells? No, you don't, and you'd never want to, never. Hey, maybe I wasn't exaggerating after all." Blackfire winced as her memories came back. "

"Well, you are worth fighting over," Raven laughed.

"I am, aren't I?" Blackfire said, joining in the laughter, before kissing Raven deeply, and it was only after their lips parted that the two of them realized that Blackfire had pushed Raven on her back. "Sorry about that," a flustered Blackfire said as she got back up-

"Wait," Raven murmured as she pulled Blackfire back down, her smoldering gaze burning slowly into the Tamaranean's eyes.

"…are you sure?" Blackfire whispered. "I mean, your powers, your emotions-"

"-have to be controlled," Raven replied quietly. "No matter the circumstances."

"Making excuses, Raven?" Blackfire retorted with a grin, though there was a trace of nervousness in the smirk- and they both knew it.

"Are you?" Raven asked.

Blackfire didn't reply; instead she leaned closer down-

"Wait," Raven whispered, her lips brushing against Blackfire's. "Can I ask you something first?"

"Anything," Blackfire said, moving to nuzzle against Raven's neck. "Anything you want."

"Your arm and neck armour- keep those on," Raven whispered into Blackfire's ear.

"Everything else?" Blackfire whispered mischievously.

"What do you think?"

On the TV screen a mummified insectoid beast in Nazi uniform leaned down against a muscular, ruggedly handsome man who was strapped to a stone table. Despite a combination of being shot at, almost blown up, run over and tortured for the past hour of the movie, his free flowing blond hair remained perfectly in place. That's how you could tell he was the hero.

"Änzer övr qvestiön plizz, Cömräde Herr Mäx Länce Shteele-Röckhärd! _Wenn ist däs Nünstück git ünd Slötermeyer?_" the beast asked in a grotesquely grotesque chitter.

"Ja, Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!" Max Lance Steele-Rockhard defiantly said defiantly. "That good enough for you, Sterben von Killemoffski?"

"Äre yöü trying tö be vünny?" the creature growled.

Unfortunately, by this time, neither Blackfire nor Raven were listening.

After all, there are better ways to have fun- and they don't involve killing brain cells.

_Author's note:_

_Well, this is where I eat my words. Don't know what I'm talking about? Look at the top of Divine Intervention, Chapter One. _

_In my defence, allow me to paraphrase Stephen King: there's no such thing as a 'writer'. You just get the words or scenes in your head from on high, and you relay them, that's all. _

_Writing's like a carnival, with rollercoasters, cotton candy stands, Houses of Horror- and authors are merely the dumb twits who're just the first in line for the rides._

_All together now, mein kinder:_

_Wheeeeeee!_


	7. Awakenings

**Chapter Seven: Awakenings**

Blackfire was content, and so did, it seemed, the rest of the world. Even though her eyes were still closed, she could feel the faint touch of the first rays of sunlight coming through the open windows, hear the faint music of birdsong- _oh, man, I've really got it bad if I'm starting to think as corny as this, _she thought.

But, much to her inner voice's surprise, she didn't really mind much. In fact, she didn't mind thinking like that at all. In the past, such thinking would have got her killed- or worse. But this wasn't the past, and she wasn't in some forsaken corner of the galaxy's underworld; she was here, in the Titans Tower, sharing a nice, comfortable couch with Raven, both of them naked if not for Raven's cloak draped over them.

Wonder if she felt the same way too-

"Um, Blackfire?" Raven said from below her.

"Mmmph," Blackfire mumbled, holding Raven closer to her, loving the way the Azerath's skin felt against her own-

"Blackfire?"

"What?" Blackfire mumbled happily as she ran her hands over Raven's naked back-

"Blackfire, wake up," Raven gently insisted.

"Don' wanna wake up," Blackfire whined. "Wanna stay here, wi' you," she sulked.

"You have to wake up, Blackfire."

"Mmm, but why?" Blackfire pouted, her eyes still closed.

"Well, you weigh a lot more than I do, for one."

"So?"

"And you're on top of me."

"Didn't seem to bother you last night," Blackfire smirked mischeivously, still half-asleep.

"And second, I'd like this to remain between the three of us."

"But Raven," Blackfire began- then her eyes shot open. "Wait, the three of us?"

"Good morning, Blackfire," Robin calmly said from above them.

That did it. Blackfire jerked awake, grabbing her discarded clothes, blushing furiously even as Robin studiously kept his back turned toward them. "YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT YOU WERE STANDING THERE THE WHOLE TIME HOW LONG WERE YOU WATCHING US YOU DIRTY LITTLE-"

"Not long enough to see anything," Raven assured her. "Here, let me help you with that."

A wave of dark energies engulfed Blackfire, Raven, and the clothes strewn across the floor. As they receded, the Tamaranean was slightly surprised to see that not only were the two of them fully clothed, but looked as if they were neatly pressed and ironed- they even felt warm to the touch.

"Huh, I always wondered how you got that thing on," she told Raven distractedly, before refocusing her fury on Robin. "Now WHERE WERE WE-"

"Pipe down, Blackfire, before you wake the whole Tower," Robin laughed as he turned back around to face them. "Like Raven said: I didn't see anything, don't worry. But seriously, you two are lucky enough I was the one who woke you two up- I mean, of all the places you two could have chosen, you chose the rec room?"

"This wasn't exactly planned, Robin," a slightly blushing Raven said before the fuming Blackfire could snap off a reply.

"I can see that," Robin laughed, and shook his head again. "The rec room," he repeated disbelievingly. "I thought you guys knew how early I wake up," he continued, referring to the good-natured ribbing he sometimes endured on the subject.

"Yeah, for _training_," Blackfire said hoarsely, still blushing. "You know- _outside_? Or in the _training room_? Sheesh!"

"I can't train on an empty stomach. Besides, you two have a lot more to worry about than me waking you up," Robin said calmly as he walked past them, and both Raven and Blackfire perked up; neither of them needed Raven's powers or Blackfire's experience to tell them that the hammer was about to fall.

As indeed it did. Robin picked up the TV remote and pointed it at the TV, which started broadcasting a news program. "Taped this last night," Robin explained conversationally, as the news broadcast prominently displayed the pictures of raven and Blackfire.

"Uh, we can explain…" Blackfire began, wearing the biggest conciliatory grin she ever made as Raven buried her face in her hands.

(scene change)

From her vantage point in her office, high in an adjoining building, Simone Page watched the convoy of trucks drive into the Aquinas warehouse. A quote from a story she had long since thought she had forgot suddenly entered her mind: "If such a sinister design isn't worthy of Atreus, it is worthy of Thyestes."

It didn't have anything to do with the situation at hand- but the story it came from did. 'The Purloined Letter', by Edgar Allan Poe, and she thought no reference more apt as she saw the large trucks move into the warehouse under both full police protection and Aquinas's own internal security force as well as heightened levels of hired help.

If it were up to her, Aquinas would not have spent so much on security- hell, she wouldn't even have bothered with the Rent-A-Cops; though Jump City was up to its neck in costumed maniacs (who'd cut through conventional security like a hot knife through butter anyway) its levels of 'normal' crime were a national low, and certainly not at the levels Gotham City was infamous for. The men designated to guard the convoy were nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

Yet, the small army still served its purpose, convincing anyone who saw it that it guarded something of value- and indeed it did, although what was in those trucks was far different from what the transport manifests listed down.

If the authorities thought it was bad enough that Aquinas was transporting Xinothium into the city, then the truth was certainly nothing they would-

Page's train of thought was interrupted when her cellphone started ringing. "Yes, Herman, what is it?" she said, recognizing the number.

"I'm afraid it's bad news, sir."

"Damn- what happened?"

"Apparently an attempt to extract had been made."

"What?" Simone yelled, her face a mask of incredulous rage.

A nervous secretary poked her head in. "Is anything wrong, Miss Page?"

"No. Now get out," Simone said coldly, only resuming the conversation once the secretary had retreated. "Nosy secretary," she said brusquely. "Now, what was that you said?"

"An attempt to extract has been made," Herman repeated. "Two unknowns, lots of hardware, cybernetic enhancements, enough to literally self destruct themselves- if my team had been there, I don't think we'd have been able to take them on."

And both of them knew the kind of arsenal Herman and his men liked to lug around with them, as well as Herman's grasp on any given military situation. If he said he couldn't have taken them, he couldn't have taken them, plain as that. "Damn, damn, damn damn!" she cursed. "Where they came from and who sent them will just have to wait. For now we have to find out where they have taken Denton."

"That's something else I need to tell you." There was the sound of Herman clearing his throat. "Denton's free."

"What? But that would mean she-" Simone paused. She could practically see Herman grimly nodding his head, and her lips thinned into a narrow slit.

"There were hostages too. Her adoptive parents it looked like, and taken out unharmed," Herman continued, the implications obvious: Jessie Denton had taken out enemies that would have had a battle-hardened squad of men for breakfast- all while rescuing two hostages unharmed. It appeared that Aquinas's finest had seriously underestimated their prey.

"I see," Simone said. "What are you doing now?"

"We're following them from a safe distance, sir. Apparently, after the fight she took off with her adoptive parents in their car," Herman said. "That's all we'll be doing, unless you have further orders."

"No, not yet," Simone said, her hand on her forehead.

But although things may have just got a whole lot more complicated than she would have liked, she at least she knew where Denton was. At the moment, that was the only thing she could count on.

Well, that, and the fact that she was about to kill three birds with one stone…

(scene change)

"…and that's the whole story," a sheepish Blackfire said, as Robin goggled disbelievingly.

"Raven," he said slowly, turning to the pale Azerath. "Is this true?"

"Sorry, Robin," Raven shrugged apologetically.

"And you two didn't think that what you did was… _extreme_, in any way?"

Both girls had the grace to look away. Behind Robin, the broadcast continued with what the media was already calling 'The Second Noodle Incident'. "Well, I'm waiting for an answer," Robin continued.

"Actually, Robin- no," Raven said, a tone of quiet defiance in her voice, and ignoring the disbelieving looks both Blackfire and Robin directed at her.

"This isn't like you, Raven," Robin said disapprovingly. "I thought you'd be able to control your emotions better."

"Who are you, her mother?" Blackfire countered scornfully.

"No, just someone who's seen what could happen if Raven loses control," Robin replied calmly.

"Oh yeah? So have I!" Blackfire snapped back. "And-"

"Blackfire, wait," Raven said, placing a hand on Blackfire's shoulder. "Look, Robin, I… I'll admit what I did last night was a bit extreme, like you said," Raven said, holding up a hand to stave off Blackfire's reply. "But after what that guy said about Blackfire- what he said _to_ Blackfire… I hope you can understand," Raven said.

Robin fixed them both with a hard gaze, before unexpectedly lightening up. "You know what? I think I can- kinda," he laughed as he looked back at the screen. "If that guy said the same thing about Starfire, I guess I'd have gone a bit crazy myself. Guess I just got a little flustered."

He then fixed them with an impish grin, his hands on his hips. "But I just can't let you two off the hook, can I?" he asked. "Nope, nope, nope!"

Blackfire and Raven looked at each other, the same look of befuddlement on their faces. _O-kay, _their faces said, _something weird was definitely going on._

"So, to make up for it, you two are going to take over Beast Boy and Cyborg's chore sheets for today," Robin said, clapping his hands together.

"Um, sure," Raven said, uncertainly. "Robin, are you feeling all right?"

"Never better, Rae, never better!" Robin affirmed. "Well, I've got training to do! See you two later! Don't forget your chores!" he said cheerily as he practically pranced out of the rec room.

"Well," Blackfire said slowly. "That was weird," she said, to which Raven could only nod. "But on the bright side," the Tamaranean continued, "at least we can count on using your magic-"

"Oh, and one more thing!" Robin piped up, sticking his head through the doorway. "No magic, okay! It's not good to cheat!" he said, before ducking back through.

Which meant the first thing Beast Boy saw when he woke up and got out of his room, was Blackfire armed with mop, bucket and handkerchief tied around her head, grumbling to herself. "Ask me and die," the Tamaranean growled as she practically assaulted the floor with the mop.

"O-kay, I won't," Beast Boy said cheerfully, stopping Blackfire in her tracks.

"Wow, it's so nice someone's in a good mood," she snapped back sarcastically. Normally the look she gave and the tones she used that accompanied her statement would have been enough to stop a rabid rancor in its tracks, but apparently Beast Boy's animal instincts hadn't registered the fact that his life was in danger.

"I know!" he said. "Man, Blackfire, I feel charged today!"

"That makes two of us," Cyborg said as he emerged from the corridor. "I- huh, Blackfire? What are you doing?" he asked at the sight of Domestic Blackfire™.

"I'm mopping the floor, Cyborg," she said sweetly, before her voice several octaves and a couple of degrees. "What the frelling kriff does it look like I'm doing?"

"Whoa, someone woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning!" Cyborg laughed. "I thought I was supposed to do the mopping today," he said. "Come on, Blackfire, spill."

Blackfire's eyes narrowed. "Sure thing!" she said with a malicious grin, and dunked her entire bucket of soapy water over Cyborg's head.

For a moment, there was silence, and Blackfire wondered if she had gone too far. Just because Cyborg had water-resistant electronics, didn't mean that he'd enjoy having a bucket of water-

"Blackfire?" Cyborg asked, in a flat tone of voice.

"What?" Blackfire replied with quiet belligerence. If Cyborg wanted a fight, she'd-

"Good one!" Cyborg laughed, giving her both thumbs up as he was joined by Beast Boy's hysterical mirth. Blackfire wondered if she should take a look outside Beast Boy's window, just to see if the sky was blue in this world as well.

"You guys all right?" she asked, a purple glint surreptitiously appearing in her eyes. Considering the enemies the Titans faced, it wouldn't be out of place for someone to take over their minds, or something.

"All right? _All right?_ Blackfire, I feel great!" Cyborg said. "I had this amazing dream last night-"

"Hey, me too!" Beast Boy said.

"Um, what kind of dreams?" Blackfire asked, as a suspicion began to grow in her mind…

"Oh, Raven, they were the most wonderful, most lovely dreams I have ever had!" Starfire proclaimed as she flitted (there was no other way Raven could describe it) around the Azerath, whom she was helping cook breakfast.

"I… see," Raven said, as her own suspicions rose to the surface. "So, uh- what were those dreams about?" she asked nervously. "Ack!"

"I was with Robin," Starfire sighed dreamily while cutting the crusts off the bread, blissfully unaware of Raven's attempts to put out her impromptu bacon and eggs flambé.

"With him- how, exactly?" Raven asked as she scraped an unrecognizable mess out of the pan.

"We were getting… _married!_" said in the same wistful tones, drawing the syllables out in one . "You were there, and so was my sister, and Cyborg, and Beast Boy- oh Raven it was beautiful!" Starfire said, throwing her hands up in the air, along with the sandwiches she had been making.

"Starfire!" Raven yelled.

"Yes?" Starfire asked turning around, plates in hand, onto where the bread slices and their fillings dropped in perfect order.

"Never mind," Raven sighed, partially in exasperation- partially in relief.

(scene change)

The man from Exclusive Results cursed under his breath as he held the submachine gun close to him. In the darkness of the sewers, he was reasonably sure there'd be some cover, and considering his experience fighting in similar situations in the ruined cities of the Middle East, he was reasonably sure he'd be able to escape.

At that thought, the man smiled bitterly, as he crept along the sewers. To think he'd requested a transfer back to the States because he thought he'd have safer jobs. Too late, he realized that whatever he hated about the warzone, at least they didn't have costumed maniacs running around like they owned the place.

He'd been hired a few days before. A woman phoned the company, needing someone to 'cover the Jump City Sewers' and 'prevent the known criminal Red X' from escaping. At the time, he didn't know why they hadn't called the cops, or the Titans.

Now he did. A few cops losing their lives, or the Titans getting hurt- that got headlines. Mercs? Nobody'd miss a gun-for-hire.

He raised his small communicator, and was relieved when it finally picked up a signal. _Hundredth time's the charm_, he thought, and adjusted the gain until he heard a voice.

"Is anyone there?" he whispered. "Is-"

"Look behind you," the voice on the other end said.

The communicator dropped into the water as he swung his arm around, shooting wildly as he frantically ran away in the other direction. He didn't care where he was running to, to late for that, just as long as he-

" 'Look behind you'," Red X said as he seized the mercenary from behind. "You just can't get good help these days- arrrgh!"

He stepped back, holding his head in his hands. The mercenary, unbelieving of his good luck, decided to push it by charging his opponent; after all, that was what he was being paid for-

"Not now!" Red X snarled as he aimed a high kick that hit the charging merc right on the chin. Judging by the loud crack that ensued as his boot connected, the now unconscious civilian contractor would have a hell of a time with a broken jaw when he woke up.

_But at least he's human_, Red X thought through the haze of pain. The impure Xinothium was beginning to take its toll on him as the minifactories in his body began to feel the strain of refining it. Even as the pain subsided, he could feel a dull pain deep within his entire body or more accurately, deep within his bones, where the minifactories were located. He was running out of time, and his body knew it.

He grinned bitterly when he found himself wishing for more time- might as well wish that none of this had happened to him in the first place.

_Not to Jessie, at least_, he thought, as he staggered off into the darkness.


	8. Unwelcome Guests

**Unwelcome Guests**

Night had fallen over Jump City, but that made no difference to most of its inhabitants. No matter who they were, or what they did, for the vast majority of Jump City's citizens the night's darkness was no hindrance for their own activities. For some, it was out of choice- the week had just ended, and it was time to let their hair down and lose themselves in the throbbing beat of a nightclub. For others, it was a good opportunity to go out with the family and maybe catch up in the week's happenings over a plate of fine food.

As for others…

"Robin? You called us?" Raven asked, as she and Blackfire poked their heads into their leader's room

"I did," Robin replied, turning from his computer console, and rubbing his eyes, domino mask on the table next to him. "You two remember what happened this morning, right?" he said archly.

"Oh come _on_, Robin!" Blackfire said angrily, instantly rising to the defensive. "Just because _you're_ too afraid to go all the way with my sister, doesn't mean I should-"

"What Blackfire means is that what happened this morning is our business, Robin, and I agree with her," Raven said softly but firmly. "Although I will admit that maybe the couch wasn't the best place for it," she added sheepishly.

"Speak for yourself," Blackfire murmured, giving the softly blushing Raven a saucy grin.

"Don't get me wrong, normally I'd agree totally," Robin said. "Whatever is your business, should be your business- but there is a problem…" he added softly, his tone and look all business as he turned to Raven.

Blackfire's eyes widened in anger. "Robin, I know you didn't just-"

"He did," Raven said, instantly silencing Blackfire. "And he's right."

In the ensuing shocked silence, Robin continued. "You two got lucky in more ways than one today; at least you two didn't cause any permanent damage."

"Wait- WHAT?" both Raven and Blackfire said in unison.

Robin didn't say anything at first; instead, he turned his computer monitor to the two girls. A schematic of Titans Tower could be seen displayed. Distressingly, a series of labels were also displayed, most of them in red indicator boxes and pointing to several parts of the tower.

"I noticed that a few systems seemed to be having problems earlier today," he began. "At the time, I was just too high to care, but when the effects wore off this evening-"

" 'Wore off'?" Blackfire muttered incredulously. "You make it sound like some kind of mind control!"

"-I ran a systems diagnostic," Robin continued, ignoring Blackfire's interruption. "Turns out half of the Tower's systems had burned out last night; according to the damage reports, the damage was worse than what Slade's robots and Legion's attacks did combined!"

"What?" Raven replied, shocked.

Robin nodded. "It gets better; the warning systems were among the affected systems. Basically, the whole Tower was on emergency power for the whole day, and nothing's been done about it until now."

"What do you mean?"

"I've got Cyborg in the basement now, working on restoring basic power."

"You told him?" Blackfire asked.

"I didn't have to; he was smart enough to figure things out by himself- he even came up to me first, wondering about how far you two have gone."

" 'How far we've gone'? Robin, are you even listening to yourself?" Blackfire protested, and Robin held up his hands in apology.

"Okay, maybe those were a poor choice of words-"

"Obviously! Raven, you can't possibly be taking this guy seriously, can you?"

"He's right, Blackfire- at least when it comes to me," Raven said, looking directly at Robin.

"Raven?" Blackfire asked.

"Raven," Robin sighed, "you both-"

"Now wait just a second, Robin!" Blackfire began. "She's not the only one-"

"He's right, Blackfire!" Raven interrupted. "Don't make this any worse-"

"Don't WHAT? Raven, I- you- he- frelling hezmana, Raven, I'm trying to defend you!" Blackfire sputtered. "Ugh! I don't know why I'm even bothering."

"Blackfire, with the exception of you and Raven, the Teen Titans were high as kites for the whole of today," Robin said. "If anything happened, would the two of you been able to handle things by yourselves? No offence, but I don't think so."

"No offence? I think it's too late for that, oh Great Leader," Blackfire retorted.

"That's enough, Blackfire!" Raven admonished. "Like I said, Robin has a point-"

"Aaargh! You know what?" Blackfire said in disgust, throwing her arms up in the air. "I give up. I. Give. Up," she muttered, before opening Robin's window and flying downwards.

Robin place a hand on his face and sighed. "Blackfire-" Robin began, calling out.

"Robin, don't. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me."

"Raven?"

"I started it; it was all my idea. Blackfire just went along with it."

"Raven, for your sake, I hope you're lying."

Raven met his hard stare with her own. "I'm not."

"Raven, we both know I won't believe that you would willingly let your emotions go out of control like that, so don't assume I'm stupid, okay?" Robin said, his temper fraying. "I cannot go soft on Blackfire, you know that!"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Raven said quietly. "Please, Robin-"

"Sorry Raven, but responsibility doesn't work that way. Besides, so what if you started it? It's as much her fault for going along with it." He fixed Raven with a piercing gaze. "It isn't as if she doesn't know what happens if you lose control of your emotions."

"Robin-"

"Why did you do it, Raven?"

"Because I wanted to feel like a normal human, just for one night!"

"Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, Raven, but you're not a normal human. Not by a long shot. And neither are any of us."

"…I know that, Robin," Raven said in a soft voice. "But you can't blame me for trying."

"I'm sorry, Raven," Robin replied softly. "But as leader of the Titans, I can, and in this case, I have to."

Raven looked at him for a moment, then grinned a small, rueful smile. "I guess you can," she said, looking away.

They stood silent for a few moments, then Raven raised her head. "I'll go see if Cyborg needs any help."

"You do that."

(scene change)

"Oh hey, Blackfire," Beast Boy said, seeing the scowling Tameranian sitting on the Tower roof, her arms around her knees. "Whatcha doing here?"

If looks could kill, then the one Blackfire gave would have ensured Beast Boy's remains would have fit in a bottlecap. "Eep! What? What did I do?"

Blackfire maintained the look for a few more moments, and then sighed. "Nothing. Don't worry, Beast Boy, you're not in trouble- this time," she said, unable to resist that last jibe.

Not that he seemed to notice the insult. "Really? Cool!"

He sat down beside Blackfire. From the corner of her eye, she could see that he was carrying a paper bag. "Say, you want some sandwiches? Starfire made them; she says they're really good."

"And are they?"

"I… I don't know, actually,' Beast Boy admitted. "I mean, she said they were vegetarian, but I don't know- I mean, plants don't usually try to snap at you, especially after they've been put in sandwiches," he said, observing the gently moving green blobs in between the slices of bread in the paper bag.

"Why are you here, Beast Boy?" Blackfire snapped.

"What? Can't a guy have dinner with his friends? Okay, so the dinner tries to eat you back this time, but still-"

"If it's about what happened today, forget it. Robin's already given me a lecture, with help from his faithful assistant Raven. Between them they covered just about everything, so you don't have to worry."

"Raven? Why?"

"Well, apparently she's all to blame for what happened today, and that all she did was drag poor innocent little me into her evil web of lust!" Blackfire announced theatrically, complete with exaggerated gestures, before curling back up. "I can take care of myself," she said sullenly.

"Is that all?" Beast Boy asked quietly.

"Well, duh! What else could there-" Blackfire began, ready to launch into another tirade, when she saw how Beast Boy was looking at her. "No, no it's not," she said quietly, settling back down. "Huh," she snorted, "I must be losing my touch if _you_ can figure out I'm lying."

"I think you lost your touch a long time ago," Beast Boy replied, giving her a small grin. "The way I see it though, it worked out for you in the end."

I guess so," she smiled, before falling silent for a few moments. "You know what really gets me, Beast Boy?" she said eventually. "The fact that Robin was right, kinda."

"What do you mean?"

"I should have known what would happen. I should have stopped us. We got lucky this time-"

"I'll say," Beast Boy observed wryly under his breath.

Blackfire pretended not to have heard him. "But it could have been much, much worse, like he said. And you know what's the real clincher? The way Raven kept on insisting that it was all her fault. "

"Well, maybe she just wanted to protect you."

"I know she did. Doesn't make it hurt any less though." She turned to him, curious. "No offence Beast Boy, but you seem to be taking this pretty well. Aren't you jealous?"

Beast Boy's laugh was both sudden and bitter. "Blackfire, you have no idea how jealous I was when I realized what happened between you two. I mean, it was not 'cos you two, well, you know- it's not that, not 100 that anyway. Thing is, I realized just how far she was willing to go with you, what she was willing to risk…"

Blackfire looked at Beast Boy, and for the first time that night noticed just how close he seemed to tears, just how depressed he looked. "Hey, cheer up," she said, nudging him. "Would it help if I said I'm sorry?"

"Sorry?" Beast Boy asked. "Blackfire, you want to know the best way to tell me I'm sorry?"

"Uh, what?" she asked tentatively, an eyebrow raised.

Beast Boy turned to her, catching her gaze. "Keep on making her happy- I mean, not like last night, unless you really want to, and if you're really far away from anything that'll drive Robin crazy," she added hastily, seeing just how high Blackfire's eyebrow rose. "But, you know," he added softly, "the thing is, ever since she's met you, Raven's been smiling a whole lot more, and anyone who's able to do that- well, she's got to be a good thing, right?"

"…thank you, Beast Boy," Blackfire said softly. "I needed that."

"What can I say? You're not the only one who likes seeing Raven happy," Beast Boy replied. "So, where is she?"

"I… I don't actually know. Why? What's wrong?"

"Well, I think you two ought to go share some sandwiches, that's all- or at least you can eat them, I know someone has to," he said, handing Blackfire the bag. "Maybe talk a few things over, while you two are at it?"

"I don't know about this, Beast Boy- Raven's never seemed the sandwich type to me," a grinning Blackfire said, standing up as she took the bag.

"But you never know, eh?"

"No, you don't," she replied, and Beast Boy smiled as Blackfire picked up her communicator.

(scene change)

"Well, I think that's the last of the transformers done," Cyborg said. "Raven!" he called out behind him. "Try activating the flux capacitors now!"

A soft hum filled the basement, and the darkness was replaced by a soft blue glow from several cylindrical objects lining the walls. "Flux capacitors online," Raven said, and Cyborg gave a victorious whoop.

"Who da man! Who da man!" Cyborg laughed, dancing around the room, when he saw something that stopped him. "Well, it's about time."

"What?" Raven asked.

"You were laughing, Raven," Cyborg grinned.

"Sorry, I'll stop," Raven said contritely.

"Wait, what? No, no! Sheesh, Raven, what made you think I didn't like it? Heck, you shoulda done it sooner- I'd just about had enough of this place reminding me of a graveyard!"

"Yeah…" Raven said, even more regretful now. "Speaking of which, I'm sorry for, uh, killing your machines."

"Raven," Cyborg said with mock sternness, "did I just hear you apologize? I better not have heard you apologize."

"You're not angry?"

"Raven, do I look angry to you?" Cyborg grinned. "Yeah, sure, I'm gonna be up all night fixing this, but on the bright side- well, that's your business, ain't it?" he added, winking. "Whoa there better watch your emotions Raven are you blushing I know you're blushing," Cyborg rambled as his circuits surged with power.

"Sorry about that," Raven said, before adding, "It was your fault, though."

"I know," Cyborg replied as his energy levels returned to normal. "Seriously though, Raven, I'm real happy for you- I mean, come on! It's 'bout time you got some happiness, if you ask me. Say, can you hold this transmitter unit still for a moment?"

"Sure," Raven said as she enveloped the mechanical cube in dark energies, suspending it in the air. "By the way, thanks."

"What for?" Cyborg asked, squinting at the device, trying to see just what was wrong with it.

"For being happy for me. The way Robin spoke to me…" She sighed, and shrugged. "And worst of all, he was right," she added, not knowing just who she was echoing at the moment. "I should have known something like this was going to happen, I should have-"

"Raven, enough," Cyborg said, and Raven found herself caught off-guard by the stern tone Cyborg was taking. "I thought you'd got over beating yourself up everything a lightbulb shorts out due to you feeling just a little but perky."

"Cyborg, this is bigger than that-" Raven began.

"No, it's not," Cyborg countered, then he thought for a moment. "Well, okay, maybe," he admitted, "but I do have a point," he said, waving a spanner in Raven's face. "You really gotta stop beating yourself up about this kinda thing."

"I can't help it, Cyborg!" Raven said. "Not even if I wanted to- there's so much that could go wrong if I lost control-"

"Okay, Raven, question time: Why did all this happen?" Cyborg asked.

"Because…" Raven began, before embarrassment made her words catch in her throat. She took a deep breath and tried again. "Because I had sex with Blackfire," she stated, her voice calm, her tones matter-of-fact- both of which did nothing to lessen her slowly blushing cheeks.

"Good!" Cyborg said, taking on the air of a questioning schoolteacher. "Now that we have identified a problem, it's time to identify its source- which in this case is…?"

Raven looked at him with narrowed eyes. "I'm not breaking up with Blackfire, if that's what you think I should do."

"It would be the easiest way to solve your problem," Cyborg said. "I mean, she's not really much younger than Supergirl, she could join the Justice League without violating her parole here," he said.

"I won't," Raven said, steel in her voice. "If… if that's what she wants, I'll go along with it. But until then, I am not letting her go," she added. "Was that what you wanted to hear?"

"What can I say? You took the words outta my mouth," Cyborg asked, spreading his arms. "So since we cannot go through the problem, we gotta go around it, am I right? Now, before you say anything," he said, seeing Raven was going to respond, "tell me: If Blackfire started coming on to you again, would- no, _could _you say no to her?"

Raven opened her mouth. Raven closed her mouth.

Cyborg grinned. "Exactly. Look, I won't pretend that I've got all the answers, but I am here to help you, 'cos I'm your friend. Thing is, I can't help you until you wanna help yourself- and a few minutes ago, I wasn't sure whether you were willing to do that."

"If I wasn't then," Raven said, getting up, "I am now."

"That's what I want to hear!" Cyborg cheered. "You going to see Blackfire?"

"I am," Raven confirmed. "We've got a lot to talk about."

"Good. And don't worry about Robin, he's just doing his job as the leader of the Titans, just like I'm doing my job as your friend."

"I know," Raven said. "Thank you- hold on," she said, picking up her communicator.

"Raven, it's me," Blackfire said through the comm. "I've got sandwiches. You want some?"

(scene change)

"Robin? Robin, it is me, Starfire."

"Door's open."

Starfire peeked into Robin's room, where she saw the leader of the Titans sitting down in his seat, his head in his hands. He looked up at her, and gave her a warm smile. "Hey, Star, what's up? I thought you were with beast Boy."

"I was, but I saw my sister flying up to the roof, and she looked so sad, so I made some Plorthagg sandwiches and told Beast boy to give them to her."

"Plorthagg sandwiches? Got any more?" Robin asked. Despite their unappetizing appearance, Robin had found them to be quite tasty, and unknown to the other Titans save Starfire, had developed a taste for them.

"I am afraid I do not," Starfire said, distressed. "Do you want me to make some more?"

"No thanks, just asking," Robin said. "So… you sent Beast Boy up to see Blackfire? No offence, Star, but that doesn't sound like the smartest thing to do, especially considering what had happened between your sister and Raven."

"Perhaps it was not," Starfire admitted, but with a tone of uncharacteristic sternness to her now. "But I did not want him to start hating my sister for whatever she had done, or hating Raven for whatever Raven had done."

She sat down on another seat next to Robin, the flash of steel she had shown replaced by a look of contrition. "I do not wish to think of my friends in this way, but I am afraid, Robin... so afraid."

Robin brought his own seat closer to her, and laid his hand down on her own. "You and me both, Starfire." He gave her a rueful grin. "I have to admit, you're handling this a whole lot better than I did."

"What do you mean?"

And so Robin explained to her what had happened; the argument, his losing his temper- everything. "I know I should have said something to them this morning," he said, "but it was so hard to concentrate on anything."

He looked up at her with a fey, hunted look in his eyes. "When I finally snapped out of it... do you know how worried I felt, Star? How scared I was? And all that was _before _I found out about the shorted out security systems!"

"Robin, it was not their fault-"

"It was, Starfire!" Robin exploded. "They should have known what was going to happen! It wasn't as if it hadn't happened before!"

Starfire looked taken aback at Robin's sudden burst of temper. "So what are you going to do now, Robin?"

Robin looked up at Starfire. "You're not going to like this," he said.

(scene change)

"I like it," Raven said, one eyebrow raised as she chewed on the Plorthagg sandwich. "I never knew a carnivorous algae could be so tasty."

"That's how they catch their prey," Blackfire said through a mouthful of her own sandwich. "Little single-celled bugs and small fish start eating bits of the algae, with certain enzymes stimulating all the right taste centers of the brain. Before they know it, they're covered in the stuff, can't move, suffocated and left to rot, with their nutrients ."

Raven paused mid-bite. "And you _eat _this?"

"Oh don't worry, we're too big and too different to register as food anyway. Trust me, it's safe for us to eat. I know my sister sometimes makes them for Robin."

"If you say so..." Raven said. She didn't sound entirely convinced, but she took another bite of Plorthagg anyway, and let her gaze wander over the brightly lit streets of Jump City in the near distance.

They were sitting on a simple abandoned bus stop bench in one of the few quiet nooks of busy Jump City; Blackfire said they 'might as well patrol the place', but Raven suspected that she just wanted a quiet place to sit and have a light dinner with the Azerath. Not that she minded, however-

There. A small twinge of emotional energy- and it wasn't from her.

"What is it, Raven?" Blackfire asked, all business now.

"There's someone nearby," Raven said, beginning to feel unsure of herself. "Someone… afraid. No- terrified."

"Friendly?"

"I can't tell," Raven said.

"Well-"

Before Blackfire could finish, a dark shape rustled through the trees, and collapsed at their feet.

"H… help her…" a haggard Red X pleaded before losing consciousness.


	9. Detainment

**Chapter 9: Detainment**

As she paced around her office, a look of fury etching itself on her chiseled features, there was only one word which managed to escape Simone Page's mouth.

"Escaped? ESCAPED?"

Simone's voice had practically risen to a shriek now. Of all the things to go wrong, this had to be the worst. "What the hell do we pay you for?"

"To clean up your messes, and keep things quiet," the man in front of her replied, his calm and collected tones serving only to irritate Simone more. "That was what you were promised when you hired us, and that is what we delivered."

"Perhaps I should have asked for success instead," Simone said snidely, and she took a small degree of pleasure at the way the man seemed to flinch momentarily. "Or will that cost us extra?"

"We will resolve this situation, I assure you," the man said. He made to speak further, but Simone had enough.

"Red X is in the Titans Tower, damn it! Your own men confirmed it- that's why I called for this friggin' meeting! He could be in there now, talking to them about-"

Simone reeled herself in, aware of the expertly concealed curiosity the man was displaying. "Suffice to say, we cannot have that criminal talking to the Titans. I hope you understand if I do not go into further detail."

"Indeed I do," the man said smoothly, when his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, and an eyebrow rose. "Hold on, Miss Page- this might prove to be the break we are looking for."

"Oh?" Simone asked. She watched as the man answered the call. After a few acknowledgements, Simone found herself wearing the grin the man was sporting. "Good news, I hope?"

"Well, I don't think Red X will be joining us tonight,' the man said, "but we do have the next best thing."

"The secondary target?"

"You read my mind, Miss Page," the man smiled. "Some of my men managed to flag down a trucker on the edge of Jump City's deserts, and made contact."

"Any casualties?"

"Surprisingly enough, no. Though the target was, as your datasheet indicated, superior to Red X for a short while, her abilities seemed to drain quickly, and the obtainment went smoothly despite a rough start."

"She would regain those capabilities unless the containment measures I outlined were taken," Simone warned, her voice cold and flinty again.

"They were taken, do not worry," the man said.

"I expect not to," Simone warned, before her tones warmed. "That being said, if you did take those containment measures, I won't- not now, not when I have Red X as good as in my hands… again."

The man before her was a hardened mercenary, a veteran of countless battles, sometimes for each side in a conflict. But even so, he found himself shuddering at the predatory grin Simone gave him when she said that.

(scene change)

"He'll be all right," a tired Raven said, holding her head in her hand. Behind her, in the infirmary, an unconscious Red X lay in one of the beds.

"Still needs a whole lot of Xinothium, though," Cyborg said from behind her. "We're fresh out, and even that's not enough."

"But he will live, right?" Robin asked. Behind him, Blackfire stood anxiously; though she couldn't care less about Red X, Raven's obvious exhaustion was definitely cause for concern. Whatever healing measures she had taken to save Red X, it was definitely more than she was letting on. She turned to look at Beast Boy, standing next to her; he obviously felt the same way for raven.

"Live, yeah," Cyborg said. "Wake up? Sure- if we're willing to wait a few days for the nanomachines to work."

"We don't have a few days," Raven and Blackfire said in unison, before looking at each other.

"Look," Blackfire began, "like we told you, the guy was pretty desperate when he caught up to us; whatever's bugging him, it's bound to be important."

"Heh, never knew you cared, Blackfire," Beast Boy smirked.

"Can't blame a girl for being curious," Blackfire grinned in return.

"If we had more Xinothium, it could really help," Cyborg added. "I checked the nanofactories inside him, and they're fine, but working at a really reduced capacity 'cos they ain't got nothing to process."

"And that doesn't worry you?" Robin asked, walking over to his ex-rival's unconscious form. "The nanotechnology on this scale…" he mused. "The technology behind it must be incredible; military grade- or very well financed."

"Come on Robin," Beast Boy said, trying to lighten the mood, "don't tell me you've never seen anything like this! I mean, all those cool toys Batman's got, and not one nano-thingy?"

"Nope," Robin replied absent-mindedly. "Br- Batman never messed around with that kind of stuff unless he really had to," he said, before turning to his friends. "He did use it to make our stuff, but when we went out to fight crime, we didn't have anything like what's in Red X."

"Thanks for the history lesson, Rob, but what about the guy?" Cyborg asked.

"I'll see what I can do to get some Xinothium-"

"That's not what I meant, Robin," Cyborg continued. "All that tech inside him, that's really advanced stuff."

"You think it came from Aquinas?" Raven asked, pressing an ice pack to her forehead.

"I can name at least three companies that specialize in nanotech at the moment," Robin said, "but Aquinas is the only one that makes them for medical purposes-"

"Not to mention the head start they've got on everyone else," Cyborg said, when his eye opened wide. "Oh man… oh man oh man oh man…"

"Uh, Cyborg?" Beast Boy asked, seeing the shocked look that had come over his friend's face.

"One of the nanofactories, it's transmitting something I think you guys should see," he said.

"Wait, you're watching his insides?" an incredulous Beast Boy asked.

"Just for the next few hours, until I've got all the data I need. Look, I don't know about medicine, but I do know about the technology inside him, and I figured someone should be watching to see if anything breaks- besides, as long as Raven's around ,the medical stuff should be okay. Anyway, that's not the point."

A picture appeared in a nearby monitor, a display of numbers and data. "Hold on, lemme sort this out a bit," Cyborg said. A few of the letters and numbers seemed to glow brightly. "This seems to be like some kind of identification code, and it's got the details of when this thing was implanted, by who-"

"Wait, just this one factory?" Blackfire interjected. "What about the rest? Are they broken or something?"

"Looks like it," Cyborg admitted. Seeing the raised eyebrow Blackfire was giving him, he continued, "I'm not really clear on how these things work-"

"And you still put transmitters inside him."

"We can debate this later, Blackfire- and Cyborg," Robin said pointedly. "First, tell us what you see."

"Well, if the data this thing is sending out is correct, then there's no wonder most of them are breaking down. This factory's at least ten years old, and with things this small, ten years is way too long to go without a tune-up."

Cyborg's face took on a sad cast as he looked back at Red X. "Like I said, I don't know much about the nanotech inside him, but from what I'm seeing here, unless someone upgrades the nanofactories, the guy's got three years left at most, and frankly, I won't want to be him for that last year."

"What do you mean?" Beast Boy asked.

"Practically every important bodily function's been replaced by nanotech," Raven said. "He has no blood cells; oxygen transmission and healing's taken over by nanotech. Spinal cells are almost all gone, replaced by nanotech transmitters. The same thing's done to his nerve endings and bone cartilage."

"Long story short," Cyborg continued, "he's got all kinds of superpowers, since the nanotech takes care of that stuff, but unless he gets Xinothium regularly, his body starts shutting down, and unless someone can do something to repair the nanotech, that's what's gonna happen anyway."

The room was silent a moment. "Poor guy," Beast Boy finally said, the words sounding short and trite even to him, but at that second, nothing seemed to fit.

"Ten years…" Blackfire said, grimacing. "So he was, what, six when they put all that k'takh in him?"

"I don't know what that meant-" Cyborg began.

"Trust me, you don't."

"-and we don't really know how old X is, but yeah, whatever whoever did to him they did it as soon as he could walk."

"Heh, Starfire'd have a fit if she heard that," Blackfire smirked. "Where is my sister, anyway?" she asked, pretending not to notice either the way Beast Boy and Cyborg seemed to tense up, or Robin's sudden calmness.

_Oh well, it can wait,_ she thought. _For now, we need some answers._

_And I know just how to get them._

(scene change)

They were playing.

It was a simple game; Rex would just tap out a pattern on the walls, and Jessie try to guess what it was. Today, it was a duck, and she giggled.

She knew that it shouldn't have been possible, but the experiments they performed on her made her hearing sensitive enough to pick out even the slightest beat of a moth's wings, if she put in the effort. Coping with her heightened senses was torture at first, to say the least, but she soon got used to them.

It wasn't even as if she really needed to use the senses anyway; like most of her powers, they only came into play if she needed to activate them, and she never did, except when Rex thought up the game. It was one of the few distractions she had from the life she was being forced to lead, and she was grateful for any respite. Even when Rex was in his darker moods, and the beast within threatened to go out of control, Jessie would remember the ways he tried to make their lives easier, and-

There it was again, the slow hum, and Jessie cringed. She knew what it was; the sound of an EMP emitter being powered up. She knew why it was being charged up; so that most of the other 'subjects' would never become powerful enough to resist or attempt escape.

She also knew that it would hurt.

The pulse coursed through her veins, sending shockwaves of pain though her body- but she could handle that. Her blood felt like it had been turned to molten metal, and she felt lightning coursing through her veins- but she could handle that. She was momentarily paralyzed, but she could handle that. Even the momentary, instinctive panic when her heart stopped was something she had gotten used to.

But the puking… yeah, no.

Jessie's eyes popped open just in time for them to see her lunch make a swift exit onto the ground, and the extreme nausea she felt made her slow to realize that she was restrained, spread-eagled vertically inside a strange, ringlike device- at least, that was what she could tell in the near total darkness.

Suddenly, the room became flooded with light, sending spears of pain through her eyes and into her brain. As the agony died down, Jessie became aware of another sound in the room apart from her labored breathing.

"Well, well, well, looks like Sleeping Beauty's finally woken up.. How long has it been, Jessie? Or is it Dannie now?"

Jessie looked up, incredulous. Though she was getting back her vision, she thought her mind had gone. Sure that couldn't be…?

"Simone?" she gasped, scarcely willing to believe it.

"You still remember me," Simone replied, a slight grin on her face. Apart from her, Jessie, and the restraining device, the huge room, reminiscent of an aircraft hangar, was bare. "I wasn't aware I was all that memorable," Simone added. "But enough about me- how are _you _doing, Jessie?"

"Simone? What- why am I here?"

"Simple really; I need bait for your boyfriend- among other things."

Even through the pain and nausea, Jessie felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. "He's not my boyfriend!"

"Suuure," Simone mocked. "That's why you've come all the way from your little house on the prairie to the big city instead of the authorities. Or maybe you were expecting the Teen Titans to help?

She snorted. "Heh- like that'd matter."

"Please, Simone, you don't have to do this, you-"

"You're right, I don't," Simone purred, walking over to Jessie. "There are a lot of things I don't have to do, or I don't have to get, but seriously, isn't life really about the bells and whistles? Those little ornaments which make it a lot easier to get by? Just because the food pyramid's there, doesn't mean I can't have cake now and then."

"…what?"

"Oh, sorry," Simone laughed. "I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast, and it's really starting to get to me. How about you- oh wait, you have," she grinned, momentarily glancing down at the sick on the ground before turning her gaze back on Jessie.

"What do you want, Simone?" Jessie asked, crying.

"What do I want?" Simone asked, her face contorting into the demonic grin that so unnerved the mercenary. "I want a lot of things, Jessie, but most of all, I want you." Seeing the shock on Jessie's face, Simone laughed. "Do you know what you are?"

"I… I-"

"You are the pinnacle of one of this great nation's many artificial superhuman projects. Oh sure, we've got that tin can in Detroit, and that mutant with the too-sharp fingernails comes a close second, but you are the number one bullet in Uncle Sam's arsenal- or at least, you were. Now you're all ours."

"I won't fight for you!" Jessie said hotly, her mind and body rallying despite the agonies they had been through.

"Jessie, Jessie, Jessie, you won't have to," Simone grinned. "Do you know what is inside you? Do you have any clue?"

"You seem to be the one with the answers, you tell me."

Simone nodded, seemingly impervious to Jessie's disrespect, and her eyes took on a coldly maniacal tone as she continued. "Nanofactories, Jessie. Hundreds of them, all much, much more advanced than the clunkers in your boyfriend's walking corpse. Do you know, he's technically dead?"

"What?" Jessie gasped.

"It's true!" Simone laughed. "His heart hasn't beaten under its own power since he was implanted! The only thing keeping him alive is Xinothium, and guess who controls practically all the supply in the United States?"

She was barely a foot away from Jessie now, and she slowly caressed the other girl's cheek. "Quite frankly, I'd have let him go on his merry way, but unfortunately, we needed you, and as long as we did, he would be a problem."

"But why do you need me?" Jessie asked desperately. "It's been years! Haven't you thought up anything new since then? There's nothing I could give you!"

"Yes, well, we have had some bad luck there as well. You see, when the Joker broke those kids free way back when, we lost quite a lot of the data we needed. Of course, we could try rebuild that data, but why bother when we could just get the prototype?"

The sound of Simone's cell phone beeping interrupted her monologue. "Well, that's a new development," she said with a coquettish scowl. "Looks like I'll have to leave you alone now, Jessie. We'll talk later, try to catch up on old times a little more, 'kay?"

She then started walking to one side of the room, when something occurred to Jessie. "Simone," she whispered, her hoarse voice surprisingly loud in the small room. "Who's we?'

Simone turned around, expressionless, then gave Jessie a quick grin. The lights turned off, save for a small rectangle in the distance where a door was opened, then it flickered as Simone walked through it. A moment later, it was gone, and Jessie was left alone in the darkness, sick to the pit of her stomach again- not with nausea, but sheer terror.

Not for herself, but for the boy who had tapped out a duck for her all those years ago.


	10. Talking Shop

**Chapter 10: Talking Shop**

The first thing Red X was aware of when his eyes opened was how bright the lights above him were, and how much they made his head throb with pain. The realization that it was the late morning sunlight didn't make it better. The next thing he noticed was how the pain wasn't just concentrated in his head, but spread evenly through his whole body.

The next thing he noticed was Robin glaring at him, arms crossed.

Red X never felt so relieved in his life.

"You have got to help her," he said, the hoarse whisper with which he spoke not managing to hide his desperation. He tried to get out of bed, but crippling weakness struck him, and he crumpled back onto the bed.

"Not until we get an explanation," Robin said.

"You don't understand," Red X pleaded. "She's in trouble, we've got to help her…"

"Who is in trouble?" Starfire asked, walking up behind Robin. Red X was too far gone in exhaustion and anxiety to notice that Robin turned away slightly from Starfire, and wouldn't have cared even if he did. "We need to understand why you would come to us for help- surely you know you are a crimi-"

"Jessie's in trouble, and you want story time," Red X spat. "Fine- wait, did you recharge my Xinothium supply?" he asked urgently, the terror in his voice obvious. "It wasn't from Aquinas, wasn't it?"

"No, it's from the Titans' armoury, so-"

"That's a relief," Red X said. "Fine, you want story time, you get story time- but I want all the Titans to be here. If I'm going to talk, I want a freakin' audience." He waited until Robin had assembled all the Titans, and then told them everything.

He told them of being 'adopted' from a slum orphanage, to find himself in a truck full of other unfortunates- runaways, children of illegal immigrants, nobody who would be missed. He told the Titans how, a year after being 'inducted', he was the only survivor of that truckload of children. "All before my age reached double digits," he said with a grim pride.

He told of the pain of implantation, how he would spend weeks in a bed, his body wracked with unending pain, kept alive only through an intravenous cocktail of chemicals, nutrients and Xinothium. He told them of seeing other children subjected to the same treatment; out of all the children who had survived the initial year, only one out of ten survived this last stage, while the rest were 'disposed of'. "And they called _me _the lucky one," Red X said with bitter irony.

Then, Jessie came. She was older, around eleven, when they took her in. At first, Red X thought of her as inferior to him, and was insanely jealous when they selected her for more refined modifications than he had. But what really rankled was the administration's decision to spare the newcomers the torture Red X and his kind had gone through; Red X didn't know why, nor did here care. Why should Jessie have been spared what he had gone through?

"But the thing is," Red X continued, his voice softening, "she was more human than anyone there. They could have stuck her brain in a robot, like they did with that ED thing in Detroit, and she'd still be the most human thing to come out of that place. More human than me, for sure- or Simone."

He turned to the Titans, who had perked up at the sound of the name. "You know, Simone Page?" he said, his grin evident even beneath the mask he wore. "Aquinas Corporation? Ice queen? Yeah, _that _Simone."

"Wait, what?" Cyborg said.

Red X let out a series of short coughs, which was all his tired body could pass off as laughter. "Yeah, surprise, surprise," he laughed bitterly, before his voice became quiet again. "She was crazy, you know," he said, seemingly more to himself than to the others, as if trying to remind himself of a past he'd rather leave forgotten. "She actually enjoyed what they were doing to her, demanded more implants, more modifications, never mind how much pain she'd have to go through. We didn't mind, at first- if the spooks were busy working on her, we'd get left alone."

Red X coughed again. "But she started getting crazier with every 'improvement' they made," he said. "You know, they didn't just get us from off the streets, you know," he suddenly said, his voice a madman's feverish tone. "They recruited from places like Juvie too, that's where they got most of the Aces High gang the Joker broke out back then. That's where they got her, I'll bet. She was old, real old, like you guys' age right now, betcha fur that's where they got her."

He slumped back onto the bed, his bizarre outburst gone with the surge of energy that had fuelled it. "I don't know how she got in with Aquinas, just that it must have happened a long time after I and Jessie escaped."

"Why did you not stay with her?" Starfire asked quietly. Perhaps only Robin picked up the restrained note of desperate questioning in her voice. If he did, he gave no sign.

Red X turned away, as if it would help him escape the question. "We… we had a difference of opinion," he said quietly. "I... I wanted to take the easy road, you could say."

"What do you mean?"

"I wanted to become a criminal, all right?" Red X snapped. "Sure, it doesn't sound like the normal thing to do, but hello? My body's a freakin' Xinothium factory!"

He slumped back down on the bed again, the burst of energy dissipated. "Least, that's what I told myself, and Jessie. I told her that my body needed Xinothium, and that the only way to get it without being sent back was to steal it. I wanted her to help me, she refused, and we split up, simple as that."

"…Well, he does have a point," Cyborg admitted. "I mean, it's not like you could buy the stuff out of a store-"

"But it wasn't the point," Red X wailed, and the Titans realized that he was crying beneath the mask. "I just wanted things to be back the way they were for me! I mean- no," he said, shaking his head. "No, you couldn't possibly understand."

"Oh really?"

Everyone turned to face Blackfire, who continued. "Let me guess, you liked the thrill of it. It's not just the fun of breaking the law; sneaking into a heavily guarded vault, yeah, that neverending adrenaline rush as you're looking out for danger. That high you get when you see that guard inch closer and closer to you, and you're holding every atom of your breath so he doesn't hear, then watching him walk away…"

Blackfire held a hand to her head and laughed. "Hells, even if it doesn't work out, it's still okay. When the bullets are flying, and the alarms are blaring, and it's just you against the world… it's like you never really appreciate life until you're _this _close to losing it, isn't it?"

She fixed Red X with a soft, but firm gaze. "Trust me, it's easier to understand than you think," she said solemnly. She gave Raven a quick glance, than said, smiling thinly, "And trust me when I say that you made the wrong choice."

"You're not sneaking into the Aquinas building, Blackfire," Robin said. "Their security is too tight. We need another plan."

"Wait," Red X said, not quite believing his ears. "Does that mean you're going to help me? I mean, I could be lying, and this could all be a trap, and, and-"

"So what if it is?" Cyborg said, checking his power supplies. "You could also be telling the truth, and if your friend Jessie is in trouble, then we'll just have to take that chance."

He gave Red X a grin. "We'll have Jessie safe and sound real soon."

"You have a plan?" Red X asked skeptically.

"Actually, we do," Blackfire piped up. "I thought it up last night."

(scene change)

"You sure you guys don't need a little more time to think?" Beast Boy quivered over the intercom, his voice a squeaky series of chitters and clicks- not like there was any other way to speak when one is a lizard.

"It's not like we're asking you to storm the place, Beast Boy," Robin chided.

"Easy for you to say," Beast Boy grumbled. "You're all nice and safe in the T-Car with Blackfire."

"We're barely a block away," Robin added.

"'Sides, if anything goes wrong, you just say it was all my idea!" Blackfire said easily. "I'm sure people'd believe you if you said that."

"That's reassuring," Beast Boy grumbled. In the T-Car, the display on one of the screens flickered. "This thing's itchy," he added.

"Just don't scratch it off or lose it," Robin warned. "We don't have a lot of microcams."

"I heard you the first ten times," Beast Boy muttered, as he sneaked into one of the ventilation shafts, his form virtually indistinguishable from the average green gecko save for the tiny camera strapped to his head.

"He's got a point you know," Blackfire said. "You don't have to babysit him."

Robin sighed as he cut the audio on their side of the link, minimizing the basic radio noise; with any luck, that, along with Cyborg's modification would make it seem no noisier to any surveillance equipment than an employee's cell phone or wireless connection.

"Sorry," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's been… hectic, lately."

"I know," Blackfire said in a calm tone. "I talked to my sister last night."

"…I see," Robin said, leaning back, his voice as calm and as even as Blackfire's. "Is this why you volunteered to accompany me and Beast Boy?"

"Actually, no- okay, a bit. But seriously? Raven and Cyborg are needed back at the Tower to help Red X, and I don't think my sister really wants to see you right now. Dunno why she's so caught up in this, it's really none of her business."

"That's not what she thinks," Robin scowled, before giving Blackfire a speculative look. "You seem to be taking this well-"

(scene)

"-are you not angry?" Starfire asked as Raven swallowed another sandwich; healing Red X's near-shattered physical body was very strenuous, and she and Cyborg had agreed to watch him in shifts, more for Raven's benefit than Cyborg's. Raven privately wondered at how he was able to manage to stay alive; even with the Xinothium factories factored in (or, if Cyborg was to be believed, _despite_ them), Red X was still clinging on to life.

"Actually, no," Raven said, picking up a mug of tea. "To tell the truth, I was expecting this."

What she hadn't expected was the slamming of Starfire's hands on the table as the Tameranian stood up quickly. "And? Do you not feel the need to defend your relationship with my sister? Does not Robin's solution of chopping you two in half not anger you?"

"Actually, it's splitting you two up, not 'chopping in half'," Cyborg said from the doorway. "What's happening? I just came up for a can of Pixie, and I hear this- who's splitting who up?"

"Robin wished to split my sister and my best friend up!" Starfire responded angrily.

"WHAT?!"

"Actually," Raven said, quietly, "Robin might have been on to something."

"WHAT?!" This time, it was both Cyborg and Starfire who cried out in unison.

(scene)

"You're actually agreeing with me?" Robin asked incredulously.

"Only if your guess is right," Blackfire hastened to correct, her arms crossed as she stared out of the T-Car's windshield. "But if you are, I'm not going to take the blame if the Tower's attacked and there's nobody around to defend it."

"That's the least of my worries," Robin sighed, before fixing Blackfire with a speculative look. "I have to admit, you're taking this a whole lot better than I thought you would."

Blackfire was silent for a moment. "I won't pretend I like it," she said at last. "But that doesn't mean that I don't understand it. And believe you me, when Starfire told me, the first thing I wanted to do was to kick your butt off the Tower into the sea."

"So what stopped you?"

(scene)

"Me," Raven sighed, as healing energies slowly flowed from her into Red X's unconscious form. "I hope you're not disappointed," she said wryly to Starfire.

"I… I am angry at Robin," Starfire admitted. "But I did not wish any harm to come to Robin then, nor do I wish it now."

"Could've fooled me," Cyborg said dryly as he fiddled around with a few settings on a nearby machine. "So," he asked Raven, "you talked Blackfire out of kicking Robin's rear- that can't have been easy."

"It wasn't, nor was what the two of us realized," Raven said quietly. "I mean, after all we've been through, we suddenly have to break up? The worst part was that it wasn't our decision to make, apparently."

Her hands clenched. "But if it had to be done, then that was what needed to be done."

(scene)

"What?" Robin said incredulously. He had been expecting a spirited defence, a quiet anger- anything but acceptance. "Are you saying-"

Blackfire turned to Robin, a devil-may-care smirk on her face masking the emotions all too plain in her eyes. "Yep," she said with a levity she didn't feel. "If you want us out of your hair, that's what you're going to get. Well, kinda."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I meant? If you want us to go, we'll go."

There was another silence in the T-Car. "You're leaving?"

Blackfire shook her head. "Not really either. Look, here's the thing…"

Blackfire broke off as Robin looked at her questioningly. Damn, she had been so ready to blow his mind when she started, but now, when the big moment came, it had turned out to be a whole lot harder to say what she wanted. "I love Raven," she said simply, deciding to plow through the problem. "And…"

(scene)

"…and if I have to leave to make her happy," Raven said, to Cyborg and Starfire's shocked faces, "then I don't mind."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Rae!" Cyborg said, holding up his hands to her. "What?"

"Perhaps you misheard what I or Blackfire said," Starfire said. "Never did I say that Robin said that you would have to leave! He only meant that perhaps your relationship with my sister would have to- to- to skate!"

"Put on ice, you mean?"

"That is exactly what I- he- we meant!"

"I know, Starfire," Raven said. "But… but if there is no other way, then I will leave; Titans East could-"

"No they couldn't, Rae," Cyborg said sternly. "And let me tell you why- you're not just our teammate, Raven, but you're also our friend, and friends stick together."

(scene)

"That's the problem," Blackfire said quietly. "I'm not exactly a Titan, am I?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I mean, I'm not really a hero either," she added. "Legally, I'm just here on probation for escaping from prison."

"Blackfire… I just thought you and Raven need some time to let things cool down between you two, that's all. I just think Raven needs some more time to control her emotions-"

"She's had so much time to control them already, what makes you think she hasn't got it yet?" Blackfire countered. "I've thought about things, and… and maybe you were more right than you thought."

"Raven will be devastated if you leave," Robin said.

"She'll get over it," Blackfire said flatly. "She's a strong girl."

"No, Blackfire," Robin said, surprising even himself with the vehemence of his denial. "She's not."

(scene)

"You're just like any of normal teenager out there," Cyborg said. "Heck, you're like 90 of teenagers out there, right down to the all-black getup and the bad poetry," he joked.

"Cyborg," Raven said, unwilling to let the subject go. "Most teenagers aren't half demon-"

"Stop it."

Raven and Cyborg turned to Starfire. "Stop it, Raven. You are making a mountain out of a molehill."

"Actually- actually, you got it right, sorry," Cyborg said sheepishly.

Starfire didn't pay attention to him. "My sister is not as strong as you think, Raven, and she cares for you very much. If you leave…"

"She won't go back to being a criminal, Starfire-" Raven began.

"And do you know why?" Starfire responded, her tones heating up. "It is because of you, Raven. She has changed because she saw no other way to be with you. Are you saying that it was all not worth it?"

"Of course it was, Starfire, but-"

"Then why do you speak of leaving? Whether you or my sister or Robin like it or not, you are more than my sisters teammate!"

(scene)

"I won't lie, the thought of what could happen if things go wrong is a scary one," Robin admitted. "But it won't be the first scary thing the Titans come up against, and it won't be the last. It won't be the first or the last scary thing we beat either."

Blackfire looked at Robin, and after a moment, nodded. "Thanks," she said, before grinning. "So you don't want us to break up after all, then?"

"Not at all," Robin said. "Maybe I was tired, or Starfire was tired, or maybe both of us were, but whatever I said last night, breaking you two up wasn't part of what I wanted. Like I said, you two should just hold off on things before going any further. Or at least take it somewhere where it won't hurt anybody."

"Hmm…" Blackfire said, considering something. "So… Batman, he get along well with the Lantern Corps?"

"I guess so, why?"

"Well, if you really want us to be out of your hair," Blackfire grinned wickedly, her old spirit returning, "I could take Raven out on a trip somewhere nice."

"Anything that doesn't require your planetary arrest lifted?" Robin asked dryly.

"Oh come on, Robin!" Blackfire pleaded. "There's this really swanky resort world in the Pleiades Cluster, Magrathea-made, and-"

Before Blackfire could finish her spiel, Beast Boy's voice came over the comms. "Guys, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"


	11. Deception and Truth

**Chapter Eleven: Deception and Truth**

"Hey Cyborg, are you all right?"

Raven bore a small grin as she saw Cyborg turn around from the diagnostic monitor where he had been making a few adjustments to stabilize Red X's condition. "Yeah, I'm fine," he told his friend, who had just walked in with a couple of mugs and some food held on a disc of magical energies.

"You don't look it," Raven replied, handing Cyborg one of the mugs, and setting the plate down on the table where the two of them had been keeping watch on Red X since she and Blackfire pulled the near-conscious villain into the Tower.

"Look who's talking," Cyborg retorted, and Raven had to admit that he had a point. Red X had been in far worse shape than she had thought at first, a matter made much worse by the fact that he also needed a fast-decaying nanotech system to survive, which was why Cyborg was needed there as well.

"What's so funny?" Cyborg asked, when he saw Raven crack a small smile as she sipped her tea.

"Nothing," Raven said. "It's just that…have I- have we really changed so much?"

"Huh?"

Raven turned her weary smile on Cyborg. "I wanted to go along with Blackfire, remember?"

"So?"

"And she was the one who wanted me to stay to make sure Red X pulled through," Raven sighed ruefully.

Cyborg looked at her for a moment, then grinned as well. "Guess you have, Raven. You and Blackfire both."

"Guess so," Raven replied, then her smile disappeared as she looked into her tea. "I hope she's all right."

"Don't worry, she'll be okay," Cyborg told her.

"I hope so," Raven replied, her whispered reply as much for herself as it was for Cyborg. "But honestly, Cyborg? I wish I was there to make sure she would."

"So why aren't you, you idiot?"

Raven looked up in shock, wondering why Cyborg would say such a thing, then she realized that the voice wasn't Cyborg's; judging by the look on his face, so did he. "Red X?" she asked, turning to the recumbent figure on the bed.

His eyes could not be seen through the mask, but even so, Raven got the feeling that he was looking at them through squinted, disapproving eyes. "Your girlfriend is putting herself in danger- for someone other than you, let me remind you- and you're sitting here, changing the bedpan of someone who's supposed to be your freakin' enemy!"

"Uh, X," Cyborg began. "You do know we're trying to save your life, right?"

"Yeah?" Red X replied. "So?"

He sighed, and turned to Raven. "Look, I know you and that alien girl- Blackfire, right? Yeah, I know you two have something going on. Aside from the fact that it's hot as freakin' hell," he added, ignoring the disapproving look the Titans were giving him, "I'm sure that you'd rather be there with her, right?"

"But you-"

"The way I see it, you have three choices," Red X went on, heeding Cyborg's interruption as much as he did Raven's displeasure, "First, you two stay here trying to stabilize my condition, because the only way you're keeping me here is if you beat me to Death's front yard. Two, I tell you that I'll be all right, so you two can go out and do your hero thing, while I sneak out of the Tower. Three, we all go along and save the day like the Three Freakin' Musketeers. Okay, so maybe two and three aren't all that different-"

"Sneak out and do what?" Raven scoffed. "Even if you do manage to survive without our help, you're still too weak to do anything."

Red X looked up at her. "If you were in my place, and Blackfire in Jessie's, what would you do?"

Raven involuntarily stepped back, her expression one of both fear and worry before she managed to bring it under control. "…That doesn't have anything to do with-"

"GOD DAMN IT!" Red X yelled, leaping from the bed to stand in front of a surprised Raven. "It has everything to do… everything… uhh…"

He collapsed down to the ground- or would have, had Cyborg not caught him in time. "Sorry, X, but we ain't going nowhere, and neither are you."

"Yes, I am," Red X insisted. "Look, there is… there is an option four here," he said. "My systems have a hibernation point if they or I get too damaged."

"Oh really?" Cyborg said sceptically. "Then why didn't you mention it before?"

"Because I didn't think it would have made a difference!" Red X snarled. "At least, not to you."

"And why not?"

"Well, first of all, in my condition, I wasn't actually sure they'd work," Red X replied. "And since you guys are apparently all so god damned noble, you'd just take that as 'Red X's got a death wish'. Second, well, there's a cutoff point for the hibernation; basically, as soon as they run out of Xinothium, I've run out of time."

"Is he telling the truth, Cyborg?" Raven asked.

"I dunno," Cyborg admitted. "Honestly, I'm still in the dark about most of his systems. If Batman was here, maybe he'd be able to figure them out."

"But he's not, is he?" Red X said. "Look, it's simple; just run an ionic positron charge through my nervous system- that should fool the hibernation systems."

"Run an ionic- X, you crazy?" Cyborg said incredulously. "That would kill you!"

"No, it'd kill an ordinary person, but I'm able to take it," Red X countered. "You know Xinothium tolerance levels, you know I can take it. Just don't overdo it, and I'll be all right."

"Do it, Cyborg," Raven said.

"What- Raven, you gone loco too? Just because you're worried about Blackfire-"

Raven looked up at Cyborg. "He loves her," she said simply.

"She's right," Red X said quietly. "And one way or another, you guys are going to help her. You have to."

Cyborg looked from Red X, then to Raven, then to Red X again. "… I hope you two know what you are doing," he said, shaking his head, and hooking Red X back up to the diagnostic machine, with an additional connection into his arm cannon's battery. "This is the most I'm gonna give you," he told Red X. "If this doesn't work, we're staying."

"It'll work," Red X reassured him. "Now hurry, you don't have much time."

Cyborg sighed, then took a deep breath before pressing a series of buttons on his arm.

Red X's body stiffened in the bed, and small arcs of electricity pulsed on what little skin was visible through his suit. For a moment, the two Titans watching him were gripped by a heart-sinking terror, wondering whether this was Red X's simple, brutal way of forcing their hand- then he settled back down, and the diagnostic machine's steady beeps and visual readouts showed that he was still alive. In fact…

"Holy… he was right?" Cyborg said incredulously, as he peered into the screen displays. "He was right!"

"He's not in any danger, then?" Raven asked.

"Doesn't look like it," Cyborg told her. "I mean, I can see signs that things are going to get worse, sure," he added, "but he's not going as fast as he was just now. Funny thing, though…"

"What?"

"Judging by these screens…" Cyborg said, uncertain, before his face froze in shock and despair. "Oh no… X, what have you done? What did you just make me do?"

(scene change)

"I don't know," Robin admitted, as he slowly rappelled down the elevator shaft, "but honestly, I don't think we have any other choice."

"I know that," Starfire sighed reluctantly, as she and Blackfire orbited Robin, keeping their eyes out for any hidden dangers. "I am just not used to- to 'breaking and entering'," she said, the Human saying coming a little easier to her than most.

"Personally, I'd do a whole lot better with some backup- and silence," Blackfire grumbled, scanning the sides of the shaft. Sure, between Robin and Beast Boy, they had managed to rig up a crude, though adequate jamming system that would hopefully last long enough for the four of them to enter the interrogation chamber Beast Boy had glimpsed, ostensibly to rescue the girl in there.

Even so, Blackfire had to admit that she was in it as much to- what? Humiliate Red X? Make him indebted to her? One way or another, she was going to come out ahead of him after this, and there was no way she'd allow him to forget it.

Hey, she was _good_; nothing there about being _nice_.

That being said, she wished Red X was here to assist them; from what she heard of Robin's preliminary assessment of the building's defences, it was sealed up pretty tightly. However he'd got in, he had the advantage of preparation, reconnaissance, an apparent in-depth knowledge of the enemy - basically, everything the Titans currently entering the place didn't have.

Although, considering how smoothly things were going, there was no doubt that it wouldn't have helped anyway; Simone knew they were coming. Undoubtedly, there would be guards galore, maybe even a deathtrap or two waiting for the Titans at their destination, and from the look on Robin's face, so did he.

Oh what the hell, Simone knew they were coming anyway…

"Hey, you want to back out, feel free," Blackfire grinned.

"I could say the same to you," Robin replied, smiling himself.

"I would, but a girl has a reputation to keep."

"Uh-huh, and whatever Raven would think of you when you get back, that's nothing, right?" Beast Boy said through the comms.

"…You know, I liked you better when you were jealous," Blackfire said, but she felt the tension drain away from her even as she scowled. True, this wasn't the first time she'd ever knowingly walked into trouble, but that didn't mean she liked it, and the banter, lame though it was, was doing a world of good in calming her down.

Beast Boy just waggled his eyebrows at her and grinned sweetly, before a door at the end of the shaft caught his eye. "That's the place where they're holding Jessie," he said. "It's right behind that door."

The Titans looked at it. The thing was twelve feet high, made of reinforced steel, and, as Robin confirmed through a quickly thrown Batarang, protected by a simple forcefield.

"Well, it's not like they don't know we're coming already," Blackfire sighed as she gathered energy in her hands.

(scene change)

"Ah, the Titans. Right on schedule," Simone Page said as the Titans strode through the smoke of the ruined door. Behind her, Jessie Denton, battered and broken still lay trapped in the machine Simone had interrogated her in.

"Then you know why we're here," Robin said, Starfire and Blackfire taking up positions on either side of him.

"I guess," Simone sneered. "Honestly, I don't know why you're so hopped up on trying to rescue her," she continued, motioning to the near-comatose girl behind her. "You're the last people who I'd think would listen to Red X."

"We'd have come even if he didn't ask for- wait," Robin said, as the full implications of what she said sank in. Seeing the looks on Starfire and Blackfire's faces, he knew that they had come to the same conclusions.

"Oh, don't worry," Simone said, as Robin reached for his communicator. "Your friends in the Tower are perfectly safe. Only a complete fool would try to take on their enemies in their own base- oh _wait_," she said, her sneer growing positively predatory as her eyes narrowed into slits.

"You know, of all the things you seem to know about us," Blackfire said condescendingly, "you seem to have forgotten one teeny, tiny detail."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, we're the Teen Titans," Blackfire replied, her eyes glowing with power as her mouth twisted into a half-sneer. "And you're outnumbered four to-"

"One!" Beast Boy yelled as he came up behind Simone in gorilla form and caught her in a bear hug.

At least, that was his intention.

Instead, what happened was that his arms closed in on thin air.

"Oh-ho," Simone smiled, from behind him. "I think it's you guys who are outnumbered."

And with one swift kick, she threw Beast Boy across the room with such force, the other Titans had barely a split second to dodge as the green primate slammed into the ground and skidded towards them.

"Beast Boy!" Starfire yelled in distress, but her sister had other plans, screaming bloody murder as she flew towards Simone at top speed, starbolts blazing- only to have her eyes widen in shock as she hit nothing. "What the-? I knew I hit something!" she screamed in frustration.

Then the next thing she knew was pain, as Simone's fists drummed into her stomach and face at lightning speed, sending her flying backwards as well to crash next to Beast Boy. It wasn't just the speed, but the strength of the punches, she realized in her daze.

"What… what are you?" she spat through a cut lip, her eyes beginning to swell. She found herself fearing for both Beast Boy and Robin; she knew that her Tameranian physiology and body armour had saved her from the worst, and for those who lacked both…

"Me?" Simone asked in mock astonishment. "I'm just the end product of her," she motioned towards the barely conscious Jessie Denton, "and the boy your friend Red X was just to chicken to be. I'm the end result of decades of bioweapon engineering!"

A fanatical gleam entered her eye. "I am superhuman! The perfect fusion of technology and flesh! I am-"

"-one of the greatest hopes humanity has."

All eyes in the room turned towards the new voice. "Mr. Walton?" Robin said in disbelief, as the founder of the Aquinas Corporation came into the room on a powered wheelchair.

"You are within this plan?" Starfire asked, her own voice echoing Robin's stunned tones.

"Yes, Starfire, I was in on this," he admitted, before letting out a self-deprecating laugh. "I must admit, it doesn't look to good for me, doesn't it?"

He looked up at Simone, and gestured for her to hold her ground. "I suppose this is as good a time to tell you why I did it- after all, isn't it the done thing for a supervillain to monologue about his plans, at some time or another?"

"You can tell it to the court," Robin snarled, as he slowly reached around for a Batarang. "Besides, in case you haven't forgotten, supervillains also get their rear kicked after they monologue."

"Come now my boy, do you honestly think you could do anything with the Director in the room?" he asked, gesturing to the grinning Simone. "You should at least get to hear just what you had to die for."

"Nobody's dying here," Red X said as he stepped out of a portal in a wall, followed by Cyborg and Raven, after which the portal closed.

"What?" Walton asked incredulously, "How- Simone, I thought you had the outside of the building magically warded?"

"I did, sir!"" Simone protested.

"Yeah, about that," Cyborg said. "We can expect guards or some sort of security soon. I kinda made our own way in. Good news is, since the rest of the building wasn't warded, Raven took care of the rest. In any case," he added grimlu grimly. "Only thing that really matters now is how we're going to get Jessie out, and you in prison."

"Prison…?" Walton asked quietly. "Prison… for what, Cyborg?"

"For what?" a shocked Cyborg asked. "Well, for starters-"

"FOR WHAT, YOU INGRATEFUL CHILD?" Walton yelled in sudden rage. "Look at you, Cyborg! Look at you! Do you remember what you were before the accident that made you this way? Do you, Stone? Do you remember how it was, lying in bed, crippled and broken? Try living with those memories every day of your life."

His face contorted into a snarl, he pointed at Cyborg. "Oh, I am sure that every day of your life you look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you're 'normal' again, that it's no big deal, that you are not in fact lying through your teeth! Wake up, Cyborg! Open your one remaining eye! Because when you get right down to it, you're as much a cripple as I am!"

He pointed at Jessie. "But she, she's the key to a cure! A cure for both of us! Nanotechnology, Cyborg! Think of the possibilities! You could have all the powers you have now, but look normal! You could walk out on the streets and nobody would give you a second look! I would be able to walk again. Damn you, Cyborg! Do you know how many senators I had to bribe to get Aquinas the contract! How many favours I had to pull? And do you know why I did all that? Not to create human weapons, it was to provide people like you and I hope, hope that you seem all to bent to destroy for some naïve morality!"

"Kidnapping innocent people as experiments is your definition of hope?" Cyborg retorted. "If that's the price I have to pay for being normal, I'd rather stay like this."

"Grow up, Cyborg! She was homeless! Trash, the waste of society! Nobody would ever miss her!"

"I would!" Red X retorted.

Walton gave him a cold, hard stare. "You? You're a criminal; even more worthless than she is."

"Blackfire was a criminal too," Raven said, her tone equally cold. "And if you say another word, I'll…"

"Damnation," Walton scowled. "I don't know why I bothered trying to make you understand. Simone? Take care of them, please."

"_Finally_!" she said. "All this talking was making my ears fall off." She looked at Raven, then at Blackfire. "You know what, she seems to like you- let's see how she responds to another woman's touch."

"Raven! Watch out!" Blackfire cried out in distress, but it was too late- Simone had reached Raven, and in one agonizingly slow moment, Blackfire saw Simone's fist cone closer, ever closer to Raven's face even as the Azerath was raising a shield to block it-

-not that it would have been necessary.

"What the-" Simone gasped, as her eyes widened in shock at her fist-

-caught in Red X's palm. "Simone?" he said calmly. "I never really liked you."

With that, she threw a punch of his own at her, one which she was too slow to dodge, but too fast for any of the other Titans to see, and this time it was her turn to skid along the floor.

Walton pressed the controls of his wheelchair, but found it unmoving; something was holding it back-

"Going somewhere, Mr. Walton?" Blackfire asked sweetly, holding the wheelchair in place.

Meanwhile, Simone was stood up, rage filling her eyes. She didn't register the other Titans making a beeline for the machine holding Jessie, and wouldn't have cared if she did. As far as she was concerned, she was 13 again, and Rex was standing in her way, spoiling the fun she was going to have beating up Jessie.

Red X's eyes narrowed, and underneath his mask, he was grinning. He felt the same way; the only difference now… now he could make a difference. No matter what was going to happen to him, he knew that at least Jessie was safe.

With a simultaneous battle cry, the two of them charged.

(scene change)

"Starfire! Help me take care of these guys!" Raven said, as one of the main doors opened, and a group of Aquinas mercenaries came charging in. The Azerath barely managed to raise a shield a split second before the bullets impacted. Starfire and Blackfire hovered behind her, throwing starbolts through the shield to impact on the ground in front of the guards. Robert Walton lay tied up, an injured Beast Boy wrapped around him as a bio constrictor.

Behind all of them, two desperate battles raged; one was between Simone and Red X, trading kicks and punches at speeds too fast for the naked eye, and the other involved Robin and Cyborg struggling to free Jessie from her restraints. Having finally pried a casing open, Cyborg inserted a jack from his arm in place of one of the exposed wires.

"Cyborg, are you nuts? You have any idea what's that going to do to your systems?" Robin protested.

"I know, Robin, but this way is quicker, trust me! I know machines!"

"But-"

"I'm a whole lotta things, Robin," Cyborg said in a firm, but slightly desperate voice, "but I'm not a killer."

"What? Cyborg, disconnecting that won't kill Jessie-"

"I'm not talking about Jessie," Cyborg snapped. "Now let me work!"

He pressed a button on his arm, and a few sparks flew around the connection as power surged into them. "Come on… come on…"

(scene change)

"Is that the best you can do?" Red X taunted, as he deftly ducked under another one of Simone's punches.

"You bastard! You're not supposed to be this fast!" Simone screeched in frustration. "I'm supposed to be the strong one! Me! ME!"

"Aww, is pore li'l Pagie sore that I'm actually better than her?" Red X laughed.

"Nope, not at all," Simone said with cold, gleeful malice, and Rex X saw where he had gone wrong; in ducking backwards, he left himself open to the upward kick Simone was throwing. He felt her foot plant itself in his pack with a jolt of pain, and he flipped through the air to land on his face. He tried to get up, but before he managed an inch off the ground, he felt Simone's foot on his head.

"Thought you could distract me, make me angry enough to slip up, Rex?" she gloated. "Guess what? You little plan failed." She was about to say more, when she heard the sound of tearing metal behind her, and everything went black as she fell unconscious.

"Good thing he's got a Plan B, huh?" Jessie Denton said, striding over to help Red X up. Behind her, a stunned Cyborg and Robin sat near the ruins of the machine a recharged Jessie Denton had ripped herself out of. Flying to join them were Starfire, Blackfire and Raven, who had finally seen off the last of the mercenaries, who had decided that they just weren't being paid enough to fight girls. "Rex, are you okay?" she asked, helping the prone Red X up.

"Yeah, I'm all right, I'm-" he began, when his back suddenly arched up, and electricity arced on his flesh.

"Rex? REX!" Jessie screamed. "Help me! Something's happening to him!"

"Come on, Jessie, there's no time to lose!" Cyborg yelled. "We have to introduce some of your nanomachines into his bloodstream!"

"Wait, you know what's happening to him?" Robin asked.

"Red X told us about it," Raven explained, as she and Cyborg moved to assist. "He tricked Cyborg into overcharging his system so it'd last just long enough to rescue Jessie."

"But don't worry," Cyborg said desperately, as he managed to extract a second sample of Jessie's blood and inject it into Red X. "As soon as we manage to get enough nanomachines into him, he should be A-OK!"

"Won't… work," Red X gasped from his place in Jessie's arms.

"What? Whaddaya mean it wouldn't work! You said-"

"I said what I had to, to get you to stop acting like doctors and acting like heroes…" Red X replied. "Besides… was living… borrowed time… nyway…"

"Wha- X, this is no time to be screwing around with us!" Cyborg yelled.

"Come on, Rex," Jessie literally cried, tears running down her cheeks, "stop playing around! Tell him how to save you!"

"Diff'rent systems… incompatible…always better than I was… good heart…" Rex said, his breathing growing more laboured.

"Rex! Rex, please, pleasepleaseplease…" Jessie wept, the sobs coming in big, heaving gasps now.

"You were always the nice one, Jessie," Rex said. "Stay nice, okay? Stay nice."

And with that, the Xinothium factories inside Red X, worn out from years in far-too-extensive service and burnt out from power, too much, too soon, shut down. One by one, mere nanoseconds from each other.

Even so, Rex's final thought before the pain in his body ebbed away and darkness took him, was one of happiness.

_She's safe, and that's all that matters_.


	12. Aftermath

**Chapter Twelve: Aftermath**

"I thought I'd find you two here."

Cyborg and Raven turned around; Blackfire was just making her way up the hill. "Blackfire," Cyborg said in greeting. "The rest ain't with you?"

"Nah, I decided to come alone," Blackfire replied as she sat down beside her friend. "They thought I should leave you alone to do what you wanted to do, but I've never been that big on following orders."

"No, you never were," Raven replied as Blackfire moved to stand beside her.

All three of them looked back at the gravestone, where the name 'Rex Paulson' had been engraved. The rest of the graveyard was empty, and the three Titans spent a peaceful few minutes in silence, just sitting and looking at the gravestone.

"It's been five weeks," Raven said at last, breaking the silence. "Five weeks since the funeral; I thought we'd have been able to come to terms with what we did. But…"

"Five weeks is nothing like enough," Blackfire replied, her voice a barely audible whisper. "Trust me on that."

"You've killed people before?" Raven asked, a little surprised and shocked.

Blackfire nodded. "It doesn't go away. The guilt, I mean. It's not something you can just drop. Sure, I could say that I was a criminal. Sure, I had to make sure some things happened to some people," Blackfire said quietly. "Sometimes, you do what you need to do to survive." She sighed deeply. "Not that it makes things any better, not by a long shot."

"Tell me about it," Cyborg sighed in reply.

"No, I don't think I will," Blackfire said. "Because neither of you killed anyone. Red- Rex made a choice. He wanted to save Jessie, or at least help save her, and that's exactly what he did."

"We were supposed to watch him," Raven countered. "If-"

" 'If' nothing," Blackfire suddenly said hotly, turning to the Azerath. "Want an 'if'? Here's one: If it were me, I'd have done the same. If you were in trouble, Raven, I'd have done the same thing. Even if I knew the entire Justice League was on the case, my decision would be no different."

She turned to Cyborg. "And the same goes for you too."

"Thanks, Blackfire," Cyborg replied, smiling wanly.

Blackfire sighed and placed an arm around Raven, who returned the gesture. "He was willing to die for her," she whispered quietly, more to herself than anyone in particular. "I have to admit, a while back I'd have thought someone as stupid as that deserved whatever he got. Now… now, I guess I can understand."

She smiled. "To tell the truth, I can't think of a better way to go."

They stood at the grave for a few more minutes, letting the wind flow over them, when Cyborg snorted derisively. "You guys want to know something?" he asked, turning to them. "I actually felt bad when I first found out about the nanotechnology Walton had cooked up. I guess I resented my dad for not using that technology to… to make me normal, or at least look normal."

"Let me guess- you don't feel that way anymore?" Blackfire asked.

Cyborg gave his arm one last look, then turned a hard gaze on Red X's tombstone. "No, I don't," he said firmly, before a small smile cracked his sad features. "Besides, Aquinas is co-owned by my dad and Bruce Wayne now. If I ever wanted a tune-up, I know who to go to."

"But you don't," Raven said, an equally small smile playing across her features.

"Nope," Cyborg confirmed. "Maybe one day… but not today. Last I looked, the roster said 'Cyborg', not 'Victor Stone'."

He looked back at the grave. "And maybe one day we'll be able to see the name 'Red X' there. You think he'd have liked the sound of that?"

"I don't know," Blackfire replied, smiling widely. "But then again, considering how Jessie's doing, he might not have a choice about it."

(scene change)

The giant man's blood vessels were visible through his massive muscles as the chemical cocktail flowed through him, giving him strength beyond any mortal man. Saliva ran down from his gaping maw as he smashed through the wall to the room behind.

Of course, the fact that the redhead didn't look at all perturbed despite his smashing though the wall gave him a little pause, but even then, his animalistic mind was quickly moving to regain control. That being said, it wasn't his decision to strike and kill, no matter what he wished.

"Do you know what day today is, Oracle?" the white-robed man standing behind the beast said with a wicked smile. "Or should I simply address you as Barbara? I'm not averse to Batgirl, either-"

"Get on with it, Julian," Barbara Gordon said from her seat, the ruins of her computer lab all around her.

"Of course, of course," Julian Day, better known as Calendar Man said. "In case you were wondering, this is the anniversary of that infamous day when the supervillain Bane broke your good friend Batman's back. Unfortunately, the original bane is back in whatever Mexican backwater he's currently spending his days in, so I had to improvise," he said, patting the bicep of the monstrous beast. "None of the intelligence, but all of the strength of the original- an improvement, actually, in my opinion."

His grin grew wider. "But don't take my word for it, Barbara- Bane?"

The beast growled.

"Kill her."

With a bloodthirsty howl, the pseudo-Bane lifted its arm and brought it down on Barbara-

-only to have it stopped with ease just a few feet from its target by what appeared to be a costumed teenage girl.

"What?" Calendar Man said in shock. "Who are you?"

"Me? I'm the newest Bird Of Prey," the teenage said, fixing him with eyes staring from a mask styled like a skull, a red X in the middle, while Barbara looked upon her latest protégé with pride. "Now, let's get this over with. Mama set my curfew at 11, and I don't want to be late."

(scene change)

Simone Page sat in her cell, her breathing slow and laboured in the dim blue light. They were on 24 hours a day, and the only contact that Simone had with the outside world were through the grills of her cell's door.

Her cell had low level EMP waves running through it at regular periods. They weren't enough to kill her, but enough to ensure that the implants that were her one ace in the hole would cease to function. She wasn't dying, but the way she saw it, death would have been far more preferable to what she was currently enduring.

Artificially exhausted though she was, she still had it in her to curse everything that had happened to her thus far. She was close, so close to proving her superiority! If Aquinas had that stupid bitch Jessie for just a while longer, just long enough to conduct the experiments they needed, Simone would have killed that old fool Walton and appropriated whatever technology Aquinas would develop for herself; she could have been the first in a new stage of human evolution!

But now…

Thanks to that damned Red X and his Titans friends, the lifetime of pain Simone was once willing to endure in the name of greater power for herself seemed doomed to end in a whimper, spent for the rest of her life in this cell-

"Yes, it's so, so unfair, isn't it?" a throaty, feminine voice called out from the outside.

Simone looked around; she'd only been in the cell for a week, hadn't she? She can't be going crazy this easily. Or maybe it was one of the guards screwing around with her; if he was, she would-

The door swung inward, and Simone stood up tall, determined not to show any weakness to the whoever was coming in; she'd be damned if she was going to bow down to a mere, unaugmented human.

But when she saw who came in, her breath stopped in her throat.

There were two of them. The first one was… male, she believed she could say that much. Simone could see bits of seaweed hanging down from him, and water constantly dripped from the bottom of what seemed to be a long, ragged coat. He didn't walk, so much as shuffle into her cell, and his breathing sounded as if his lungs were full of water; a deep, rattling gurgle.

The most distinctive aspect about him were his eyes- or rather, his lack of them. In their place were two burned, ruined craters. Even though the rest of him seemed dripping wet, two thin wisps of smoke still emerged from each burned-out socket.

But what made Simone step back in involuntary terror was the petite, lithe girl following him inside. At first, Simone thought that the Titans had come to interrogate her- as if their testimony and their assistance to the prosecution during the trial wasn't enough, now they were sending that Raven bitch and her magic to rip out whatever secrets Simone had out of her mind?

However, as the girl approached, Simone felt a wave of unnatural fear wash over her, and as the new Raven took off her hood, she was sure that whatever this new arrival was, it definitely wasn't Raven.

"Simone Page, right?" the being asked, fixing all its four eyes on the woman before her. "Don't worry, my friend here made sure the guards are all… indisposed, so we can talk freely."

"Who… what are you?" Simone asked. Within her, she felt a strange mixture of fear and revulsion at the creature standing before her… and not a little kinship. "What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing much," the being grinned. "I just want to ask you for your help."

"My help? My help in what?"

"Why," the being replied easily, as alarm klaxons sounded throughout the jail. "I want your help in destroying the Teen Titans, of course."

And as the savage smile on Simone's face widened, Madness and Legion couldn't help but join in.


End file.
